She pushed his hand away and clamped the front of her robe closed. Clamped her knees shut too, but that was more to ward off the sudden wave of desire shooting through her. He had her wet and needy and all he’d done was touch her leg.
She shifted her chair away from him, far enough away that she could breathe again, and reached for her coffee cup. “So tell me about yourself.”
His brow furrowed again. “You seriously don’t remember anything from last night?”
She shook her head.
He blew out his breath, grinned and stuck out his hand. “Hi, my name is Max. It’s a pleasure to meet you Miss…?”
“Ms. Montgomery.” She couldn’t help but smile back. He had that kind of infectious grin that was really hard to resist. “But you can call me Phoenix.”
“Interesting name. Is it your real name or a nickname?”
“I’m not telling. At least not until we’ve dated at least six months.” And none of her relationships ever lasted that long.
“Okay. But if you prefer, I can always call you Georgiana.”
She flushed all the way down to the roots of her hair. How much had she told this complete stranger yesterday? She never told anyone her real name. “Since I’m obviously at the disadvantage here, I don’t suppose we could speed this up a little? Like full name, place of birth, age, job description?” The reason why I married a complete stranger?
He eyed her for a long moment and she resisted the urge to squirm. For a mad second she thought he was weighing something up and deciding how much to tell her. God, she hoped he wasn’t a con man. That would be awkward if she was left with the bill for this fancy suite. She didn’t think her life savings would stretch to breakfast, let alone a night in this hotel.
Then he smiled, mouth wide, eyes crinkling, and her heart thundered against her chest. With a smile like that, it was amazing he was still single. Well, single enough to marry her, of course.
Assuming he wasn’t some Mormon with three wives back home. Was bigamy legal here in Nevada?
“Max Waldburg. I was born in a tiny principality in Europe you won’t have heard of, my age is on our marriage contract, and I work for my grandfather on his farm.”
Farm. Napa. Something clicked. “A vineyard. You make wine.”
“I’m a vintner, yes. Five years of studying viticulture, and a whole lot more as an apprentice to my grandfather, and the critics say I’m getting quite good at it.”
He reached for her hand, and this time she didn’t push him away. His touch was more than a caress; it was as if she stood in a rainbow, in a shaft of sunlight on a cold day.
“You’ll love it there. The farmhouse has a wrap-around veranda and a kitchen the size of forever. You can stand at the front door and look out over the entire valley and see nothing but vines and trees. At sunset, it’s truly magical.”
She’d married a poet. That figured. She always managed to attract men with very little grasp on reality. “You were born in Europe, but your family’s American?”
“My mother’s family is American. My father was from Europe, but he’s dead now. He died a few weeks ago.”
“I’m sorry. My father died recently too.” And this was the first time she’d thought of him all morning. She’d been awake nearly an hour and not once had the familiar grief overwhelmed her. Max might have his uses after all.
He squeezed her hand. “I know. That’s what drew us together in the first place.”
She didn’t need to ask what drew them together in the second place. The delicious static buzzing between them spoke for itself. And if she didn’t put a little space between them very quickly, she was going to find out first-hand how good the sex had been. She wasn’t usually a girl who slept with a guy she didn’t know. At least, not when she was sober.
She pulled her hand out of his and slid off the chair, away from him. Pacing the floor was preferable to being seduced by the deepest, darkest blue eyes she’d ever seen.
Blonde hair, blue eyes, tanned skin. He would make a good surfer boy if he ever decided to give up farming.
“So we signed a marriage contract?”
He laughed. “It’s on the side table. Knock yourself out.” The idiom sounded quaint in his subtle accent. She took advantage of his offer and leapt at the envelope on the small table he indicated. The papers inside seemed genuine. And that really was her signature, messy beside his large, looping, slightly old-fashioned scrawl.
“Is there a pre-nup?”
“We won’t need one.” His confidence bordered on arrogance. “There hasn’t been a divorce in my family in over three hundred years.”
She had news for him. She could only track back two generations of her family, and there hadn’t been a divorce in any of them that she knew of either. But that didn’t mean there couldn’t be a first time.
On the plus side, her impetuous little marriage could be her ticket out of a dingy motel in Vegas. Max had wealth and privilege written all over him. “So what’s your big plan for our future?”
He leaned back in his chair, lips curling in a smile. Did anything bother him? Did he ever stop smiling?
“We’ll go back to Napa, of course. And we’ll make wine, and enjoy the sunshine, and clean air and good food. We’ll have a family, and we’ll grow old together.”
Phoenix was ready to stick her finger down her throat. Stay in one place the rest of her life and grow old there? Stay with one man, forsaking all others? Over her dead body.
She dealt with the easiest issue first. “Why do I have to uproot myself and move to Napa? You could move here.”
“Because I have responsibilities in Napa, to my grandfather, to everyone who works on the farm. You don’t. Last night you told me Napa was as good a place to live as any.”
She rolled her eyes. “I was obviously out of my mind last night. I like not being responsible for anyone or anything.” Or to anyone. As long as she showed up for work every day and didn’t spill drinks on the customers as they threw their life savings into the slot machines, her life was her own, to do with as she pleased.
Max leaned back. “That’s a rather selfish way to live, don’t you think?”
“Of course it’s selfish. And I’m perfectly happy with that, thank you very much. So how do we go about getting a divorce?”
That wiped the smile off his face pretty quick. “I just told you there hasn’t been a divorce in my family for over three hundred years.”
“Then you’d better start making plans to have me bumped off, because there is no way in hell I’m going to settle down and play happy families with you. If the choice is between life as a soccer mom driving an SUV in the suburbs, and death, then it’s a very easy choice.”
“Who says it has to be either?” He laughed, and her tolerance level jumped from mild irritation to flat out anger.
She waved the papers in her hand. “This marriage is a mistake. Commitment is the quickest way to end a good relationship, and we don’t even have that.” Not to mention that it committed you to only one person, and where was the fun in that? No more waking up in strange hotel rooms and trying to climb out through windows? Thanks, but she’d skip it.
He frowned. “You don’t really believe that.”
“You don’t have a clue what I believe.”
“Last