Free Fortune's Proposal by Allison Leigh Page A

out like chunks of gravel, and he coughed. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
    Deanna was looking anywhere but at him. She was holding the towel so tightly around herself that her fingers were nearly white. “No. It’s my fault. I, um, I—” she broke off and shook her head. Her hair bounced against her bare shoulders. “This is what I get for lying,” she mumbled.
    â€œIt was a simple accident.” He reached past her, aware of the way she jumped when he did so, and set the coffee mug on top of the chest. “Once we’re married and living together—”
    â€œLiving together!”
    He frowned, looking through the half-closed door out into the hallway. Fortunately, the only sounds he could hear were the laughter and voices coming from the other side of the house where everyone else was still gathered in the kitchen.
    He closed the door.
    â€œYeah, living together.” Only by some pity from God was he able to keep his eyes focused on her face. “That’s what generally happens when couples marry.” He kept his voice low. The adobe-looking walls were probably thick here, but he didn’t want to take any chances.
    â€œWe—” her free hand waved between them “—are not a couple,” she reminded.
    He caught that waving hand and held it up between them. The diamond on her finger sent prisms of light dancing around the walls. “For all intents and purposes,we became one when I put this rock on your finger. What the hell kind of marriage do you think it would look like we have if we don’t live together after the I dos? For that matter, it’s already striking some of them as odd that we’re not already doing so.”
    She yanked her hand out of his. “Tell them I’m old-fashioned.” Her voice was shaky and she looked away from him again only to suddenly shove the chest drawer closed.
    But that was a little like trying to undo the whole towel-drop thing.
    He’d already seen the hanks of ribbon and sheer lace lying neatly inside.
    And because he’d seen, up close and personally, the stunningly perfect body they’d be covering, he had a double dose of fresh torment for his overactive mind.
    â€œThat’s exactly what I told Jeremy,” he said. “That you’re old-fashioned.” And for some reason, his brother had found that statement riotously funny.
    Isabella had simply smiled serenely as she’d set a platter of bacon and sausage on the table between them that she and Evie—the housekeeper and cook that his brother had brought with him from L.A.—had reheated for him because he’d overslept everyone else by a good three hours, and said she thought “old-fashioned” was still a good trait to possess.
    â€œGreat.” Deanna made a face. “Now they’ll wonder even more what on earth you’re doing, supposedly marrying me.”
    â€œWhat do you want me to say, Deanna?” He was frustrated on so many levels that he couldn’t keep it out of his voice.
    â€œI don’t know!” She turned away, still clutching the towel around her like a drowning person clutched a lifevest. She sat down on the edge of the bed, only to bounce back up and move away from it, too.
    Irritation joined frustration. “I’m not likely to attack you, for God’s sake. Just because we woke up the way we did doesn’t mean I don’t have some self-control.”
    â€œI didn’t say you didn’t.”
    â€œYou were the one cozying up to me in your sleep, you know,” he added. “Now you’re acting like a virginal nun who’s afraid to be alone with a man.”
    She went red. The color spread from the tips of her ears behind which she’d tucked her shining hair to the hollow at the base of her throat, over her smooth, toned shoulders and right down beyond the edge of the towel cinched above her breasts.
    He actually found