Marissa gathered up her clothes, shaking her head at the way they were all wrinkled. She couldn’t go home in these clothes. Her father would immediately think she’d slept in her clothes. And it wouldn’t be a hard leap for him to come to the conclusion that she hadn’t actually slept in them, but that they were dumped onto the floor while she slept without them. The next connection would be that she’d slept with a man while said clothes were in a haphazard mess on the floor.
A thought occurred to her. Would he even care if she’d slept with someone? If she told him she’d been with Zeke, the very man her father wanted her to marry, would he be angry or happy? Her father had crassly told her to take off her clothes to get Zeke to marry her, seduce him if needed. So would he care?
She shuddered, not willing to find out. She’d swing by one of her favorite stores and grab some new clothes before going home. As she pulled on her silk blouse and navy skirt, she tried to come up with a reasonable answer for why both she and her sister were out of the house. Their system in the past was to tell their father that they’d seen the other one, or to tell him that she’d seen her sister over at the library or a friend’s house or whatever it was that would make him move on to his business. The best story was to explain to their father that the missing one was sick and in bed. Her father was phobic of germs and wouldn’t venture down the bedroom hallway when one of them simply had a headache. He prided himself on never getting sick and he couldn’t understand why he’d produced two daughters who were so weak and fell victim to germs.
Father of the year was not in the future for Joseph Berutelli, she thought as she ducked under Zeke’s bed to find her second shoe. Once she was completely dressed, she grabbed her phone and called for a cab while she wandered through Zeke’s house trying to find out how to get out. The place was massive with three levels! As she wandered through the hallways, she was stunned by all the room. Good grief, she was actually lost!
Zeke’s housekeeper found her a moment before she turned into the library and showed her to the private elevator where she was able to speed down to the lobby of the building. There she found her cab waiting for her. She was grateful when she arrived at the department store just as it was opening and was quickly able to find a new skirt and blouse, just something to get her into the house.
When she actually walked into the house, after returning to Zeke’s office to retrieve her car where she’d left it the day before, she acted as if she’d just returned from shopping instead of returning from sleeping over at a man’s house.
Thankfully her father wasn’t around, nor did his housekeeper stop her. Betty was a kind woman, but she had never been able to stand up to her father’s commands. So if Betty had known that both Sierra and Marissa were gone, she’d never be able to lie to her employer about the issue.
When Marissa was safely inside of her room, she tucked her old clothes into the closet and hurried to her bathroom to put on makeup. She needed to look presentable, although she wasn’t exactly sure what she was going to do with herself today. She had some work to do on a website a friend had asked her to create, but she wasn’t able to focus on anything important right at the moment.
Laying down on her bed, she stared up at the white ceiling, trying to get her thoughts in order after last night’s experience.
First of all, she couldn’t believe how sweet and tender Zeke was. When he was making love to her, he was gentle and caring, more giving than she would have imagined. Of course, as soon as he entered her, he was demanding, powerful and…she shivered at the memory of how her body had responded so quickly to everything he’d done to her. He wouldn’t let her hide from him either. Inhibitions weren’t allowed. Anytime she’d tried to hide from him for any reason, he’d just chuckled and gone ahead with whatever he’d been trying to do. And he had the strength to pin her down and let him take control.
Goodness, she liked that. She hadn’t thought she would, but she really loved the way he was so strong and domineering. It made her feel soft and sexy, very feminine.
Should she be worried that she liked a man to take control? Probably. Was she going to worry about it? Try to figure out what it meant about herself? She bit her lip and her fingers twitched on the bedspread. Okay, yes, she was going to worry about what that meant. She couldn’t help it. She’d been a feminist all her life, not wanting to be dominated by her father’s orders. So enjoying Zeke’s commanding presence during sex was something she was darn well going to worry about.
He was a sweet, caring man and….oh no!
She sat up in the bed, every muscle in her body tense as she realized something horrible.
“Impossible,” she said out loud to the empty room. “It simply isn’t possible!” She refused to believe that she was in love with the man.
She paced back and forth, her mind refusing to accept the truth. But every excuse she came up with for how she was feeling was a lie. She told herself that she’d just wanted to have sex, but she’d never been even remotely interested in any kind of physical intimacy with the men she’d dated previously. She told herself that she simply wanted to rebel against her father, but that certainly didn’t strike a chord especially when she realized that she couldn’t see Zeke any more for fear of putting him in jeopardy with her father.
With a sigh, and ignoring the tear that seeped out from one eye, she laid back down on her bed and continued staring at the ceiling. She ignored her cell phone when it started ringing, assuming it was just her father. He probably thought she owed him a status update on her mission to marry Zeke. It occurred to her that it might be Zeke calling to check on her, but he’d left her with a kiss this morning, telling her he’d see her later tonight as he rushed off to meetings. So it wouldn’t be him calling her. She had a special ring tone for her sister, so right now, she simply didn’t want to talk to anyone.
Focusing on the important issues, she realized that she had to protect Zeke. She had to stay as far away from him as possible. She couldn’t marry him, even to save herself from a marriage to the repulsive Jimmy. She would marry Jimmy to save her sister and to keep her father from getting his grip on Zeke and any of his contacts. The man deserved better than to be forced into a family like hers.
The sadness that seeped into her body, leaving her cold and shaking, was so intense she wished she could find some sort of escape, some relief. But there wasn’t anything she could do about the way she was feeling. She just hoped with time that she would get over Zeke.