Made For Each Other by Parris Afton Bonds Page A

should have been an actor,” she
told him afterward. “You sounded so convincing even I almost
believed you.”
    “Let’s hope everyone else does,” he
said tersely. “Now, call your parents and tell them.” Julie’s
eyebrows shot up, and he said, “You don’t want the newsmen to
descend on your parents and have them find out that way, do
you?”
    Reluctantly she took the telephone he
handed her and deposited the coins. The fact that she was married
still seemed unreal to her. And the fact that the marriage would
not have to last forever, as Nick had pointed out, made it that
much more difficult for her to tell her parents. Fortunately her
parents were out, but her grandmother seemed delighted by the news.
“I hope you got yourself a rakehell, young lady,” the old woman
chortled.
    After she had finished the call, Nick
ushered her aboard the next flight out for the Yucatan peninsula,
quietly ignoring her protest about her appearance. “Take a look
around you,” he said with some exasperation. “Half the passengers
aboard the plane are dressed as casually as you.”
    “You call this casual?” she demanded,
holding out the hem of the plaid shirt that draped over the knees
of her jeans. She had barely had time to comb her hair in the
airport’s ladies’ room.
    He leaned across her, unbuckled her
seat belt, and quickly tied the shirt’s hem at a knot at her waist.
“There,” he said, refastening her seat belt and tugging it an extra
notch, as if he took pleasure in inflicting even the small amount
of discomfort. “We’ll buy you a complete wardrobe the minute we
arrive,” he said, unperturbed by her continual objections. He took
the plastic glass of Scotch and water the attractive flight
attendant brought him, not even noticing the special smile of
admiration she cast from beneath her long false eyelashes.
“
    “But I don’t want a
wardrobe!”
    He took a drink of the Scotch and gave
her a studied glance. “Then what is it that you want?”
    She looked out the small window at the
rugged brown mixture of field and mountain that passed below the
wings of the 727 like a giant relief map. “I thought I would be
exchanging vows with someone who loved me . . . as much as I loved
him,”she whispered miserably. “I guess I wanted a fairytale
wedding.”
    “And instead you got a tale out of the
Brothers Grimm,” he replied and silently finished his drink while
she distractedly leafed through the in-flight magazine.
    She first sighted the island from the
small cargo and passenger boat that made one trip daily from the
peninsula. Cozumel's breath-taking beauty was a dream she never
expected to materialize. Turquoise waves tumbled onto the whitest
beaches imaginable. Chicle trees and coconut palms swayed in the
offshore breezes.
    Cozumel was an idyllic tropical isle
in every sense, left little unchanged from the time when Spanish
explorers touched there on their voyages of conquest—except for
several first-class resort hotels clustered at the rocky bluffs of
the Caribbean.
    It was at a luxury hotel along the
highest bluff that Nick took a suite of rooms. While he ordered
champagne from room service, she stepped through the open terrace
doors onto the balcony that her bedroom shared with Nick’s. The
balcony overlooked beaches washed smooth by white-tipped waves, and
bougainvillea twined around its wrought-iron railing.
    Yet she saw none of the tropical
beauty that surrounded her. She was tired— exhausted from the trip,
she told herself, but she knew it was really from the combination
of events ending with her marriage to Nick. The strain was telling
on her. How could she possibly resist the force of Nick’s magnetic
charm, when he chose to beguile her, for six months, much less six
hours ... or six min¬utes?
    Nick came up behind, surprising her.
“Sit down,” he said, indicating the lounge chair of woven cane. He
took one of the other chairs at the small round table that was
covered with tanned