She wasn’t Mrs. Anyone. She was Captain Helen Pallas, and she was never going to change that for a man, never again, no way, no how. Her divorce had been final just two days ago. She’d gotten the court papers, gotten her army orders, gotten on the highway.
She let go of her hair and slowly held out her left hand. Diamonds and gold surrounded her ring finger, glittering in the morning light as she trembled.
She’d gotten married.
A doorbell rang. Helen snatched her hand back to clutch the sheet more tightly around her neck. This bedroom was part of a suite, because the door was open a few inches and she could see a little bit of a Liberace-worthy candelabra and a shiny satin sofa in the next room. It sounded like a door in that living room opened, then men’s voices murmured. She looked frantically around the floor, but not one piece of clothing cluttered the carpet. She kept the sheet clutched to her neck with one hand as she stood and started jerking the rest of the sheet off the bed with her other hand, petals fluttering in the air like startled butterflies.
“Will that be all, sir?” asked one male voice.
“Yes.”
Helen stopped moving. That one syllable, yes, was spoken in a voice so deep, she knew it was the man who had said other syllables, words like sex and love, words that had made her melt.
Dark hair—he’d had dark hair. And he was big, not just tall but broad shouldered, hard muscled and—and tan skin, and—
And—
She could only hiss at herself for not knowing who had put a ring on her finger. She yanked the giant California-king-size sheet free and started wrapping it around herself. The sheet was white, but the red petals had left pink splotches everywhere. She’d heard of sprinkling rose petals on a bed, of course, but she’d never heard that the luxurious, romantic gesture caused stains. No one mentioned that part.
Of course it ruined the sheets. What romantic gesture didn’t turn into a disaster?
“Thank you, sir.” The more-talkative man sounded so cheerful, Helen could only assume he’d gotten a generous tip. “Congratulations again to you both. Just call us if you need anything else, anything else at all.”
Helen held her breath, but the deep voice she listened for didn’t make any answer. The outer door opened and shut again. With the sheet wrapped around her chest and securely tucked under her arms, she braced herself for the coming confrontation. She stood still, practically at attention, and waited for the man who’d said yes to come into the bedroom to talk to her, his new bride.
A bride. Good God, Helen, what is wrong with you?
She’d been through this once already, and once had been one time too many. If this Mr. Cross was any kind of decent human being, he’d know—he must know—that she’d been drunk last night, and he wouldn’t dream of holding her to any drunken promises she might have made.
She didn’t want to rehash a night she could barely recall with a man she could barely recall. She was thirsty. Her stomach was unsettled. She needed breakfast. If this Mr. Cross would let her eat and then let her go and pretend nothing had ever happened, that would make him Mr. Right.
She heard some rustling about in the next room and swallowed down her sense of...anticipation? Surely not. Panic? She didn’t like to think of herself as someone who panicked. She was an army officer. She could handle whoever came through that bedroom door.
Nobody did. Instead, a shower started running. The hotel suite must be very big, with more than one bathroom, because the bathroom attached to this bedroom was empty. Somewhere beyond this bedroom, her groom was taking a shower, something apparently more important than checking on his new wife.
Stop expecting anything else. Ever. From anyone.
The fake gold and fake diamonds in the bedroom furniture were ridiculous. The rose petals were impractical and staining, and the gold-and-diamond band on her finger was—well, it was returnable, surely. She just needed to go tell her supposed groom that he could return it, and if any kind of legal document existed, they’d have to undo that, too. Yes, she’d just tell...what was his name?
“Mrs.—”
Stroke.
“—Cross.”
Stroke.
Cross. Tom Cross. Not Thomas, but Tom. It was coming back to her.
Helen kept facing the bedroom door, but as she looked at the opulent bed out of the corner of her eye, something else in her brain stirred. Something significant had happened on that bed. Sex, the wildest sex of her life, had taken place there, and it had been... She held her breath again, willing her brain to work.
Fragments, just little bits and pieces of memory, ran through her mind, but they were enough. It wasn’t that the sex had been wild. It hadn’t been a Kama Sutra reenactment or anything, but it had been...unrestrained. She’d been unrestrained, fearlessly surrendering to him, letting him set the pace, letting him have his fill of her. She’d felt so safe, so relaxed, she could do anything, say anything, have anything from him she wanted. Over and over again, she’d responded to his touch, to that deep voice in her ear—oh, what exactly had he said?
Her skin felt warm. Her heart was beating hard. She’d loved whatever he said, she knew that much, because her body was responding—please yes more—to her fractured, incomplete memories.
Arousal was useless right now. Helen couldn’t crawl back in that bed and wait for the man to get out of the shower, even if she wanted to. Which she didn’t. She couldn’t—she needed to extricate herself from this situation and get back on the road to Fort Hood. She had to report to her new unit by noon tomorrow. There were no clocks in this room, but judging by the sun, it was full morning, and she still had at least eighteen hours to drive. She was not going to report late to her new post because of a one-night stand. That wasn’t acceptable to the army. It wasn’t acceptable to her. Captain Pallas would never be so unreliable. Never so unprofessional.
How many times had her ex-husband mocked her for that?
Once, Helen, just once, would it kill you to be late to formation when I want to have sex with my wife? Not every chick in the military is as uptight as you are, thank God.
The headache that had started to recede came back in full force, but Helen couldn’t let a little thing like physical pain stop her. She had orders to obey.
She’d taken an oath for the army long before she’d made any vows with this Tom Cross. Unlike a husband, the army would never change its mind. Legally, she had to be in Texas by 1200 hours tomorrow, or she would be AWOL—absent without leave.
A real commitment like that made decisions easy. She would bid farewell to this Tom Cross, give him back his ring and hit the road. There was no other option.
The sound of the running water stopped. Helen marched out the bedroom door, head throbbing. The sheet trailed behind her like a train, a mockery of a wedding gown. This wasn’t a real marriage, anyway, thank goodness. She wouldn’t survive another goodbye like the one that had ended her real marriage. This was just a one-night stand. She’d never had a one-night stand before, but how hard could it be to say goodbye to a stranger?
There was no dark-haired man in the gilded living room. Instead, there was breakfast for two, a beautiful table set with linens and silverware and more roses, white and pale pink and pastel yellow, forming delicate bouquets in mini crystal vases.
Roses are always going to make me think of sex with you.
Not just sex, but sex with you. She’d forgotten that part. There’d been something special about him.
Or at least she’d thought so while under the influence—obviously, or she wouldn’t be here right now, staring at a wedding breakfast