Marriage by Mistake

from...surprise, and her acting ability. She wasn't his type; not understated elegance, sophisticated or genteel. And besides, she was only Troy's friend. Dean had never laid eyes on her before that morning. "We did not sleep together," he told her, low.
    She shot him a gaze replete with scorn. "Oh, right. You forgot."
    Dean's jaw tightened. He could not have, would not have, slept with a Las Vegas dancer. No, not even if watching the fringes rise and fall on her jacket was raising the temperature beneath his suit to about four hundred degrees.
    But the woman wasn't done. With one hand, she pointed to a finger on the other. "How do you intend to forget this ?" she wanted to know.
    Dean forced his gaze from her chest. "Excuse me?"
    She began pulling on the indicated finger, then held up an object that was too small for Dean to see. She shook it at him. "Our wedding ring, Dean. So please tell me, did you intend to 'forget' we were married, too?"
    Dean felt his heart stop right in its place. Married ? Right before he passed out from lack of oxygen, he dragged in a breath and reminded himself this was just Troy. Really playing hardball, even for a joke. He wasn't married . Not to her .
    And yet—and yet—he couldn't remember those two days. Amnesia hadn't been part of Troy's suggestion. Why the hell couldn't he remember?
    Slowly, Dean shifted his gaze to meet hers.
    Her eyes glittered with anger and insult. It was hard to believe even an actress could pull it off.
    "Here," she said, and threw the ring hard. It made a small thud as it hit the carpet behind Dean's desk. "So much for your promises," she whispered hoarsely.
    Dean watched, immobilized, as she whirled and threw open the door. He saw a flash image of Mrs. Barnes and a lot of swinging fake leather fringe before the automatic spring returned his abused office door to its frame.
    It should have become quiet then, but Dean's ears were ringing. For a long time he could only stand there, eardrums vibrating. Then he turned. His gaze went down to the floor.
    The gold band lay behind the back wheel of his chair. Like a snake, waiting to strike.
    Married, to a dancer on the Strip. Impetuously, foolishly tied to a woman with whom he had not a thing in common, who could only be charmed by his money, who made a living controlling the passions of others, and who could have no real feelings for him at all.
    Married to the very kind of woman his father always married.
    Dean stared at the ring and frowned. No. The ring was just a prop. Easily obtained. Interchangeable. Hardly proof of anything.
    He bent and picked it up. The metal was still warm from her finger.
    Dean felt a large area hollow out in his stomach. His fingers tightened on the ring. Prop?
    Or evidence of what he'd actually done those two missing days?
    The hollow in his stomach grew. No , Dean told himself. He was not his father.
    But his eyes squeezed closed as he set the ring against his forehead. If only it all didn't make a horrible kind of sense.

    CHAPTER TWO

    Kelly was still burning as she braced for liftoff in the crowded jet out of Logan. Hypnotized! How—how outrageous could a man get? Claimed he didn't even remember her! Glaring out the plane window, Kelly thought of the hours they'd spent together, the outpourings of their souls, so fast, so deep.
    She'd told him everything; from her strict, but loving, upbringing as a preacher's kid in a small town outside of St. Louis, to how she'd nearly flunked out of school but had won every dance contest around. He knew how lucky she'd felt to get the Las Vegas gig, but how frustrated she was in finding a man who was serious about a relationship, and not one who simply wanted an affair with a dancer.
    He was going to forget all that? Her soul stripped bare?
    And what about the other parts of her she'd stripped bare? What about the hours they'd spent in her bed, hot, entwined, pleasured? Was he going to 'forget' that!
    Throughout the plane flight Kelly nursed her anger, although every so often a stray thought crept in. Why had Dean looked so strange? With that grim slash of a mouth and corporate demeanor, he'd seemed like a completely different person. And a whole building was named after him?
    That was when, for one tiny, wing beat of an instant, Kelly would wonder if he'd been telling the truth in that big fat office of his, if he'd really been hypnotized and had done everything while in a trance.
    But the instant of such credulity would pass quickly. Her