“Sorry if there was any misunderstanding,” he offered, then darted inside with a quick, “G’night.”

  Ryder shook his head, trying to decide how worried he should be over Matt’s deception. Any claim that the money had been invested and Monica was on board with it was bullshit, he knew. If there was a chance for her to make back her money—and then some—in a legitimate business venture, she wouldn’t be so upset or willing to go to such lengths to try to get it back.

  But was that enough to raise doubts about Matt’s true feelings for Josie? Was the trouble with Monica’s money an isolated incident, or was it all tied together, with his sister being the man’s next target? He honestly didn’t know what to think.

  Behind him, he heard the bathroom door open inside the suite. Monica’s humming soon followed. She didn’t sound the least bit guilty over making him chase her all the way up here, or ruining his best Stetson.

  Pushing himself up from the lawn chair, Ryder stepped into the room, sliding the door closed behind him. Monica stood at the foot of the bed, drying her hair with a fluffy white towel. Another towel—one that looked much smaller to Ryder’s eyes—was wrapped around her body, tucked closed above one breast.

  Even as he told himself to look away, his gaze lingered. On the slope of her shoulders, the smooth skin of her neck and chest that disappeared within the confines of that towel. Down over everything the soft terrycloth covered, to the area he suspected of being home to one ugly green tattoo of an amphibious nature.

  His heart lurched. Not even to her legs yet, and already he was contemplating how she would react if he whipped that towel away from her breasts, tossed her down on the bed, and put good use to their honeymoon suite.

  Better to avoid the temptation, he thought, and headed for the bathroom. Two could play this game.

  “Where are you going?” she asked, her hand pausing in the act of fluffing her dark, wet hair.

  To hell with the waste of water. To hell with his hat. He turned to face her, meeting her eyes. “Sorry, darlin’, I can’t hear you. I’m in the shower.”

  And then he stepped into the bathroom, closed the door behind him, and twisted the shower knob to full cold.

  Chapter Fifteen

  When you’re workin’ a horse or dealin’ with a man, take it slow, take it easy, and don’t rush ’em.

  Still wearing the towel from her shower, Monica sat in the center of the king-size bed, trying to block out the sounds hitting her from both sides. If she rested her head against the headboard, she was way too close to what sounded like sex noises, and picturing her jerk ex with Josie made her want to barf.

  But if she concentrated on the other side of the room, all she could hear was the sound of water running. Which made her think of Ryder. Which made her think of Ryder naked. Which made her think of smooth dark skin, sexy bulging muscles, the tightest butt she’d ever seen outside of a Buns of Steel video, and the fact that all those attributes belonged to her.

  Husband, she amended frantically. They belong to my husband. She threw a hand over her eyes and dropped her face to rest on her knees.

  She was losing her mind. Her ex-fiancé was on one side of the wall making love to his new bride—which happened to not be her. And on the other side of the other wall was her husband, who was far sexier than any man had the right to be. And she wanted him.

  Her head snapped up. WTF? You want him? Are you crazy?

  Maybe she was. All she knew was that Ryder was her husband. For convenience’s sake or not, they were indeed married. He’d helped her when no one else would, when everyone thought she was simply drunk and insane. He was sweet and kind, even if those moments were interspersed with longer periods of him being aggravating and stubborn.

  And frankly, she was having a good time with him. Downstairs during dinner, when she’d only been pretending to be madly in love with him for Matt’s benefit, she’d found herself actually enjoying herself. Teasing him was fun, and he made her laugh—sometimes by doing something as simple as locking his jaw when she got on his nerves or said something he didn’t appreciate.

  He wasn’t like Matt, who oozed charm and good breeding but was really a sleaze. Matt had always complimented her on everything from her hairstyle to her footwear. Ryder looked her over from head to toe, then asked if she was actually going out in public in that, not even trying to hide his disapproval. Matt offered to wine and dine her, treated her like a queen, and made promises he never intended to keep. Then ran off with another woman. Ryder fed her stale saltine crackers (which she’d had to hunt for herself), made no promises of any kind, and told her in no uncertain terms that he’d only married her for the fifty thousand dollars she’d impetuously offered. But he also made her feel like more than a decoration to be led around on his arm.

  The way he looked at her sometimes made her feel attractive whether she was trying to be or not. Like the way he’d stared at her in the barn that first day when she knew darn well she’d looked like something the cows dragged in. And he was candid to a fault. Where Matt said whatever he thought someone most wanted to hear, Ryder said what he was actually thinking no matter the reaction it might elicit. She appreciated that, because she never had to wonder if he was being honest or not. Until she’d discovered what kind of man Matt really was, Monica hadn’t realized just how refreshing it was to know she was being told the truth at every turn. Even if it stung. Even if it wasn’t what she wanted to hear.

  And he’d come to her aid when no one else would.

  Oh, he had his own reasons for going along with her not-always-the-most-sensible plans. She’d promised him a hefty payout for marrying her, only to find out the money was all but nonexistent. Now, unless he stuck with her, he never would get the money.

  He might not agree with her plan, but he’d gone along with it, anyway. He might not approve of her fashion sense, but he didn’t tell or even ask her to change, as Matt so often had. And he may not love her like a true wife, but he sure as hell wanted her. One look in his eyes when he’d walked in from the lanai, and his desire had been evident.

  She just hoped her own had been a little less obvious.

  The water in the bathroom shut off and Monica’s spine snapped ramrod straight. The noises in the next suite, she noticed, had also grown quiet. Thank God.

  A few minutes later, Ryder emerged fresh and clean from his shower. With a towel wrapped around his hips. Her mouth watered. Monica snapped her teeth together to keep from looking like a sex-starved maniac. But, damn, he looked good, she thought with a mental whimper.

  Light, springy blond hair dotted his chest and trailed down to the edge of the towel and beyond. Droplets of water from his wet hair dripped onto his shoulders and back and coasted over his sun-darkened skin. She licked her lips, thinking how easy it would be to catch those little drops on her tongue and lap them up like a cat with cream.

  Her gaze lowered, but the steady thumping of his hat against his thigh captured her attention and pulled it away from what was hiding beneath the towel at the end of that tapering blond path.

  The thumping sounded angry, and she raised her head to look at his face. His brows were drawn as he frowned at her.

  “Nice job,” he commented, lifting the hat for her perusal.

  She studied it, but didn’t see anything wrong. The rim looked a little more wrinkled than before, but the brown hat he’d worn in the barn had looked far worse.

  “It looks okay to me,” she said.

  If possible, his brows drew even closer together, making him look like one of the Billy Goats Gruff. Unfortunately, she’d always had a soft spot for those billy goats, and even the mean little troll under the bridge.

  “It’s ruined,” he snapped and slammed it down on top of the entertainment center.

  Getting out of bed, she walked to where the hat rested, picked it up, and worked the edges a bit, smoothing the fabric. “It’s not that bad. Look, it’s fine.” She held it up, but he only rolled his eyes at her and stomped away.

  “Okay, then I’ll wear it.” Placing it on over her still-damp hair, she did a pirouette, posing like a runway model. “How do I look?”

  He turned from the closet, took in her appearance, flushed from the neck up, and turned back.

  Monica turned away, too, not wanting him to see her satisfied smile. He’d blushed, actually blushed, when he’d seen her in nothing but a towel and his black hat. She took a deep breath to keep from jumping up and down.

  She hadn’t planned to keep the towel on until he finished his shower, but she hadn’t rushed to change, either. And now she was sort of glad because she finally knew for certain that he wanted her. She’d eat his hat if he didn’t.

  Now, she just had to figure out what to do about it.

  “I talked to Matt tonight,” Ryder said a few minutes later, after they’d both taken turns in the bathroom again, changing into sleepwear.

  Ryder wore a simple pair of navy blue cotton boxer shorts that did nothing to hide his extremely attractive, bounce-a-quarter-off-me heinie. Meanwhile, Monica was stuck in the rather ridiculous nightshirt with the headless hula dancer image on both the front and back. It was more suggestive than she’d realized when she added it to her pile at the airport gift shop and had her wondering which Ryder found sexier—her half-naked form or the cartoonish, yet perfect, hourglass figure. Not that it mattered. After all, the hula dancer was just a cold, one-dimensional scrap of material, while she was flesh and blood and very real curves. If she decided to do anything about the heady charge surging between them, she imagined he’d appreciate that.

  He sat on the very edge of one side of the bed, scribbling on a hotel notepad. She stood on the opposite side, staring at his broad back, fighting the urge to reach out and give it a stroke.

  “About what?” She filled her palm with the unscented moisturizer the hotel provided and began rubbing it on her arms and legs to counteract the drying effects of her shower.

  “Your money.”

  Her brows rose. Ryder had asked Matt about her money? The same Ryder who didn’t particularly believe her story to begin with? “What did he say?” she asked cautiously.

  He glanced over his shoulder at her. When he saw her smoothing lotion onto her knees and calves, he turned back to his writing.

  “You were right.” His words sounded gravelly, and he paused to clear his throat. “He has your money.”

  Monica wanted to do something childish like stick her tongue out or say “I told you so.” After all, she had told him so, even if he hadn’t been quick to believe her. But she retained her maturity and calmly said, “Good. Then he can write me a check and we can go home all the sooner.”

  “I don’t think it’s going to be that easy. He claims the money is tied up in the magazine venture.” He tossed the pen he’d been using down next to the tablet and stood. “But he was jittery as a Mexican jumping bean when he said it. I don’t trust him any more than I would an angry rattler. Which doesn’t exactly tickle me pink that Josie married him,” he grumbled, almost under his breath.

  “So you believe me now.” Monica lifted her right foot to the mattress and started spreading lotion around her ankle and over the top of her foot, surprised at how little accusation those words contained. She didn’t care who was right and who was wrong, she was simply happy to hear him acknowledge that she wasn’t making this up. That Matt really had run off with her money.

  “Yeah.” Ryder didn’t seem the least uncomfortable with his admission, only with the fact that she was moisturizing. Although he kept his body turned toward her, his eyes darted anywhere else. Over her head, at the television—which wasn’t even turned on—at their empty travel bags that still stood beside one of the dressers.

  With his eyes focused on the alarm clock and the red dots between the numbers, blinking away the seconds, he said, “Except that he claims you’re in this thing with him all the way. One hundred percent behind him, I think he said. That you want him to have the capital for the magazine so you can both start raking in the dough.”

  Monica’s eyes narrowed and she put both feet flat on the floor, hands on her hips. “That son of a bitch. That jackass. That slime. I gave him the money to start a new magazine before he ran off and married another woman, and he damn well knows it. If he thinks I’m going to let him take my fifty thousand dollars to do with as he pleases, now of all times…well, he’s got another thought coming, I can tell you that.”

  She stomped around the bed, past Ryder, to the second nightstand where she’d left her cell phone to charge. Grabbing it up, she started punching in numbers like she really wanted to punch Matt.

  “I don’t care if he is investing it in a new magazine, I no longer want him to have it. The jerk.”

  “Who are you calling?”

  “Brooke,” she answered. And then her friend’s voice came on the line and she said, “Brooke. Hey, it’s Monica. Listen, I need you to do me a favor.” She wasn’t exactly sure of the change in time zones, but if it was after midnight in Honolulu, it had to be almost quitting time in Chicago. “Do you have Simon Farraday’s phone number handy?”

  She waited a minute and then scrawled the numbers on the same pad Ryder had been using. “Thanks. What time is it there? Okay, I think I can still catch him. And I’ll fill you in on everything later, I promise.”

  She ended the call, then started dialing the number Brooke had just given her.

  “Now who are you calling?”

  Ryder stood behind her, at a complete loss, she was sure. But she was too angry and in too much of a hurry to go into detail with him. “Matt’s accountant, who’s also done some work for me—if I can catch him before he leaves the office for the day.”

  The phone rang about ten times before a man finally answered. He must have let his receptionist go home already, because he sounded none too happy about being bothered at this hour. “Simon Farraday,” he snapped.

  “Hi, Simon, this is Monica Blair.”

  “Monica. What a surprise.”

  She was sure. Especially if he’d seen the same Tribune she had—the one with Matt’s wedding announcement in it.

  “Yeah, I know. I need your help with something, Simon. A couple months ago, I loaned Matt fifty thousand dollars to put toward launching a new fashion magazine. Now that he’s…now that we’re no longer engaged, I’m really not comfortable with the idea of going into business with him or having such a large chunk of my money on his side of the table. And I know that any investments Matt makes go through you, so I was hoping you could help me get my money back.”

  “Monica,” Simon said her name slowly and his tone caused her stomach to clench. “I’m sorry to hear about you and Matt, but Monica…he never gave me any money for a new magazine initiative. He never even brought up wanting to get into something like that. Are you sure he said he’d given the money to me?”

  Covering her eyes with one hand, she lowered her head and her voice. “No, he never mentioned you, but I know he makes other investments through your office and just assumed…” She blew out a breath. “Is there anyone else he might be working with?”

  “Not that I know of. Do you have documentation of the money you loaned him?”

  “No,” she said simply. Because she was an idiot. Because she’d trusted the man she’d thought she loved, thought she was going to marry. Because she’d had dreams and plans for the future, and never imagined anything like this could ever happen to her. “I’m sure everything is fine. I just have to talk to Matt about it, that’s all. Thanks, Simon.”

  “No problem. I wish I could have been more help.”

  “Yeah. Me, too. Good night, Simon. Thanks again.”

  “You’re welcome. And Monica… If you plan to tell anyone else about this, be sure you find some sort of proof that you lent Matt the money to begin with. Things could get sticky otherwise.”

  Didn’t she know it. “I’ll do that. Thank you.”

  When she hung up, she didn’t know whether to smash the phone against the wall or throw herself across the bed and cry. “Damn him.”

  “What did he say?” Ryder asked, having been perfectly silent through both conversations.

  She turned away from the nightstand to face Ryder. “Surprise, surprise! Matt never mentioned anything about a new magazine enterprise or borrowing money from me.”

  “He never intended to start a new magazine,” Ryder stated matter-of-factly.

  Monica shook her head and blinked back the tears that stung at the corners of her eyes. “I guess not. God, I’m such an idiot.”

  Ryder came forward and put his hands on her upper arms, his fingers squeezing in a gently supportive gesture. Then he lifted her chin and met her gaze. “No, you’re not,” he said solemnly. “You had no reason to believe Matt was being anything but honest with you when he asked for the money. And you thought you were getting married—why wouldn’t you trust your future husband?”

  He gave her arms one more soft stroke and then stepped back, pacing to the end of the bed. “Matt’s the idiot here. I just hope he’s not planning to screw over Josie the way he did you.”

  Monica sniffed and crossed her arms over her chest. “Does she have any money he could run off with?”

  Ryder frowned. “No. But when I wanted to start my own ranch, my parents gave me the land to build on. Josie’s never wanted land, so they always planned to give her the cash equivalent. When she settled down.”

  “Like now. When she just married Matt.”

  If possible, the furrows in Ryder’s forehead deepened. Monica suddenly felt sorry for him. Not only was he dealing with her and financial difficulties because of last year’s tornado, but now he had to worry about his sister being married to a con artist. Sprinkle in a dash of adultery and alien abduction and they could all go on The Jerry Springer Show and throw chairs at each other.

  “Look, maybe we’re projecting here. Maybe Matt truly loves Josie and will never do anything to hurt her. Maybe running off with my money was an isolated incident.”