5 Minutes to Marriage

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

About the Author

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Epilogue

Copyright

Carla Cassidy is an award-winning author who has written more than fifty books. Carla believes the only thing better than curling up with a good book to read is sitting down at the computer with a good story to write. She’s looking forward to writing many more books and bringing hours of pleasure to readers.

Prologue

He stood on the curb across the street from the casino with its glittering lights and flashy marquee, and the ball of hatred inside him expanded to make him half-breathless.

Harold Rothchild owned this casino, the same Harold Rothchild who had built his fortune on the destruction and blood of others, the same Harold who had destroyed his life.

A small smile curved his lips. Poor Harold’s life had taken a turn for the worse. “And it’s all because of me,” he whispered to himself.

He’d killed Harold’s daughter and he now had in his possession the invaluable Tears of the Quetzal diamond ring. He’d done everything he’d set out to do, but as he started at the grand entrance of the casino, he realized it wasn’t enough.

That was the funny thing about revenge—just when you thought you’d achieved it, that gnawing hunger for more rose inside you.

He felt it now, burgeoning in his chest, and he clenched his hands into fists at his sides. Rage. It roared through him like a hot wind, stirring his need to inflict more pain, more heartache.

He wasn’t through with the Rothchilds, not yet, not by a long shot. He wouldn’t be through until Harold Rothchild and his family fell to their knees and wept for all they had lost.

Chapter 1

The evening began with such promise. The house was in order, the kids had been bathed and dressed in matching outfits and Jack Cortland was looking forward to his date.

He’d met Heidi Gray in the grocery store on one of his rare trips into town. The sophisticated, attractive blonde had smiled at him, and before they’d left the produce section, they’d made a date. Since that time they’d been out three times, and tonight was the first time she would meet his children.

Ten minutes before she was set to arrive, he sat down with his two sons on the sofa. Four-year-old Mick sat on one side of him and three-year-old David was on the other.

“Now, boys, this is a really important night. I want you both to be on your best behavior and be nice to Miss Heidi when she gets here,” he said.

“Heidi tighty whitey,” Mick exclaimed.

“Heidi tighty whitey,” David echoed, and the two broke into gales of laughter.

“Now, now, boys,” Jack said in an effort to gain control, but it was too late. Their giggles increased in volume, and Jack sat and waited until finally they’d worn their giggles out.

“I do not want to hear you say that again,” Jack said as firmly as possible.

David frowned at him. “Bad Jack,” he said. “No yelling.”

“I wasn’t yelling,” Jack protested, and then sighed. “Why don’t the two of you go play in your room until our guest arrives.”

He watched as they raced out of the living room and down the hallway toward the bedroom. When they disappeared out of sight, he released a sigh of exhaustion.

The boys had been in his custody for a little over four months, ever since their mother, his ex-wife, Candace, had been murdered. And in those months he’d realized they were undisciplined, wild and had absolutely zero respect for him.

Jack knew how to beat a rhythm on the drums to stir the blood. He could sing the rock and roll that was in his soul. He knew how to entertain a stadium of fans with his music. There had been a time not so long ago when he’d also known how to drink and drug himself into oblivion, but he didn’t know anything about parenting.

He pulled himself up from the sofa and went into the kitchen, where the delicious scents of pot roast wafted in the air. Betty, his cook, stood before the sink, washing the last of the dishes before she left for the day.

“Everything is done and in the oven waiting to go on the table,” she said as she turned away from the sink and dried her hands on a towel.

“Sure you don’t want to stick around?” Jack asked hopefully.

She gave him one of her dour gazes. “I told you when you hired me that I cook and that’s it. I don’t serve, I don’t clean house and I definitely don’t babysit.” She grabbed her purse from the top of the counter. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, Mr. Cortland.”

As she headed for the back door, Jack squashed the panic that threatened to rise in his chest. He told himself that the night was going to be a rousing success.

He wandered into the dining room, where Betty had set the table with the good dishes and linen napkins. It was probably a mistake to share the meal with both his date and his sons, but it was important to him that whatever woman he invited into his life knew that his sons were part of the package deal.

For a year following his divorce from Candace, Jack had rarely seen his sons. Candace has spent much of that year globe-trotting, and Jack had been in no condition, either financially or emotionally, to chase after her.

When Candace had been murdered the boys had come to live with him, but Jack knew Harold Rothchild, Candace’s father, was just waiting for him to make a mistake so he could swoop in and take the boys away.

Jack’s stomach tightened at the thought of Harold. There was no question the wealthy, powerful Las Vegas mogul wanted his grandsons, but the only way he could take custody away from Jack was to prove that he was an unfit father. Jack was doing everything in his power to make sure that didn’t happen. He was determined to be the best father he could be.

The doorbell rang, signaling the arrival of Heidi, and Jack hurried to the door to welcome her. From the direction of the bedroom came the sounds of the boys laughing, and once again he mentally muttered a prayer that the evening went well.

The first thirty minutes were relatively successful. On their previous dates Jack had found Heidi to be a good conversationalist, and it didn’t hurt that she was jaw-droppingly gorgeous. He was male enough to enjoy the scent of her perfume in the air and the hint of cleavage that her V-neck blouse offered him.

After a brief introduction to the boys, they returned to playing in their room, giving Jack and Heidi time alone.

When it was time to move into the dining room for the meal, there were several minutes of chaos as Jack got the boys settled in their booster seats at the table, then hurried into the kitchen to bring out the meal that Betty had prepared.

Pot roast and potatoes, broccoli florets with cheese, homemade dinner rolls and a Jell-O salad all went to the table, and after filling the boys’ plates, Jack returned to his seat.

“This looks yummy,” Heidi said. “Did you do all this?”

“I wish I could take credit for it, but no. I have a local woman who comes in to cook for us.” He smiled at her, then blinked as a piece of cheesy broccoli smacked her chest and slowly slid downward before falling into the vee of her blouse.

Mick giggled.

Jack stared at his son in horror. “Mick!” He turned back to Heidi. “I’m so sorry.”

Another cheese-covered floret struck her in the head, and this time it was David who laughed uproariously. Suddenly the broccoli was flying and Jack was yelling. Heidi jumped up from the table in an effort to escape the onslaught of food, her features tight with aggravation.

“Mick, David! Stop it right now,” Jack exclaimed.

“Bad Jack,” Mick yelled.

“I’m out of here,” Heidi exclaimed. “I wasn’t sure that I was at a place in my life to be an instant mother, and now I know the answer. I’m definitely not ready for this. Your children are undisciplined little boys, and you all need more than I can offer.” She grabbed her purse and marched out of the dining room. Jack ran after her, muttering apologies that she obviously didn’t want to hear.

As she slammed out of the front door, Jack leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. She was right. His boys were unruly animals, and he didn’t know what to do about it, but something had to be done.

He could just see the tabloid headlines now: “Rock Star Children Belong in a Zoo.” He hoped Heidi wasn’t the type to cash in by selling the tale of the evening to the tabloids.

By ten that evening the boys had finally fallen asleep, David on the living-room floor and Mick on the sofa. Jack carried them into their room and put them into their beds, then returned to the living room and called his lifelong buddy, Kent Goodall.

Within fifteen minutes Kent was at the house and the two men were seated at the kitchen table sipping coffee as Jack told Kent about the disastrous date.

“I need help,” Jack said. “Heidi was right. The boys are out of control, and I don’t know how to fix things.”

Kent swept a strand of his long blond hair behind one pierced ear. “I know a woman, a professional nanny. Her name is Marisa Perez, and she lives right here in Las Vegas.”

“How do you know her?” Jack asked. Kent had no children. He wasn’t even married.

“Remember the woman I dated? Ramona with the big hair and bigger chest? She’s a friend of Marisa’s. Last I heard Marisa was saving money to open up her own nanny agency.”

Jack frowned. He didn’t want to just invite anyone into his home and into the lives of his sons. As he recalled, Ramona with the big hair also had a pea brain. She’d been working as a showgirl in one of the casinos. He wasn’t sure being a friend to Ramona was necessarily a good qualification for interacting with his children.

“I’m not sure Ramona vouching for somebody makes me comfortable,” he finally said.

Kent grinned. “Trust me, I hear you, but it wouldn’t hurt for you to interview Marisa and see if she’s everything Ramona said she was. I’ll call Ramona and get her number for you.”

Jack wrapped his hands around his coffee mug and nodded. “I have to do something. If Harold gets wind of how badly I’m mangling the parenting stuff, he’ll have me back in court fighting for custody.” A painful knot formed in Jack’s chest as he thought of the possibility of losing his boys.

For the next few minutes the men talked music and bands. When Kent and Jack had been teenagers, they’d formed a band that had played local clubs and at weddings. The band had been successful on a regional level, but Jack had hungered for more.

At the age of twenty-two he’d left Las Vegas for Los Angeles and eventually had hooked up with a group of musicians who had become the rock band Creation.

While Jack had ridden the rise of fame and fortune, then eventually crashed and burned, Kent had remained in Las Vegas with his band members, playing local gigs whenever they could get them.

It was after midnight when Kent finally left, and Jack had finished clearing the dishes from the dining-room table.

When he was finished he went down the hallway toward the bedrooms. The first one he stopped in was the boys’ bedroom, and he stood in the doorway and stared at his sons.

Mick slept on his side, his legs and arms curled into a fetal position. David lay sprawled on his back, arms and legs thrown to his sides as if he’d fallen asleep in the middle of a leap off a building.

A surge of tenderness flowed through him as he watched them sleep. The love he felt for his sons was like nothing he’d ever experienced before.

Although he didn’t want to think ill of the dead, Candace had possessed the maternal instincts of a rock. Jack had hoped that the birth of the boys would somehow domesticate the wild, beautiful woman he’d married—and for a while it had worked. But it didn’t take long for the novelty of motherhood to wear off and for their marriage to self-destruct.

The boys had so many strikes against them. A mother who had been murdered and a father who was a recovering addict and knew nothing about being a dad.

They needed somebody else in their life, a nanny who could teach them how to be good boys—and the sooner the better.

“You are stupid to even consider this,” Marisa Perez said aloud to herself as she drove down the dusty Nevada road in the direction of Jack Cortland’s ranch.

He’d called her earlier that morning and asked her about her services as a nanny. Against her better judgment she’d agreed to meet with him at his house.

It had been big news when Jack had moved back to his family home two years ago following a very public divorce from Candace Rothchild.

For years Jack and Candace had been a favorite topic of gossip in the tabloids. Their lifestyle of excess and drugs and alcohol had been legendary. The public had loved stories of the hard-rock star and his beautiful heiress wife.

From everything Marisa knew about Jack Cortland, she was not impressed. She glanced out her side window, passing land that her parents probably owned.

Like Candace, Marisa had come from wealth, but unlike Candace, Marisa had decided early on that she wanted to make her own way. She didn’t want to work for the family in their real estate ventures. What she loved was working with children.

She tightened her grip on the steering wheel as she turned into the long, dusty driveway that led to the Cortland ranch.

This visit was more to satisfy her curiosity than for any other reason. Since moving back here Jack had kept a low profile, rarely being seen out of his home.

She’d read the stories about Candace’s tragic murder and knew there were two little boys in Jack’s custody. More than anything she’d been driven to come out here to check on those boys.

She might not think much of Jack Cortland as a person, but he had a low, deep voice that could weaken the knees of a soldier. After talking to him on the phone that morning, it had taken her several minutes to get that sexy voice out of her head.

The farmhouse came into view, and as she pulled up front and parked, she saw a towheaded tot wearing only a diaper racing across the grass and heading toward a large barn in the distance.

Marisa turned off her engine and expected at any moment some adult to come running out of the house to collect the child. When that didn’t immediately happen, she jumped out of her car and hurried toward the little tot.

“Hi,” she said when she caught up with him.

He stopped and smiled at her, and her heart crunched in her chest. He looked like a little angel with his pale hair and bright blue eyes. “Hi,” he replied.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“David.” He glanced toward the barn, as if eager to be on his way.

“I’m Marisa. You want to play a game?” His eyes lit up and he nodded. “Do you know how to jump on one foot?” He nodded again and began to jump up and down. “Let’s see who can jump on one foot all the way to the house.”

He took off, alternately hopping and running. Marisa followed after him, silently seething over the fact that a baby was outside alone with no adult supervision in sight.

David’s laughter rang in the air as he hurried toward the house with Marisa at his heels. They had just reached the porch when the front door exploded open and Jack Cortland flew outside.

His gray eyes were wide with alarm as he took the stairs of the porch two at a time. “David! Thank God.” He grabbed the boy up in his arms, then stared at Marisa, panic still gleaming in his eyes.

She said nothing, merely stood drinking in the sight of the infamous Jack. She’d expected a man who looked dissipated, a man with sallow skin and the lines of debauchery slashed deep in his face. Instead his dark hair gleamed richly in the overhead sunshine. He sported a healthy tan and arm muscles that looked as if he wasn’t a stranger to hard work.

He was hot…and for just a few seconds, Marisa forgot what she was doing here. It was only when David squealed in protest and struggled to get out of his father’s arms that her brain reengaged.

“I’d say you have a problem with basic safety issues,” she said.

“He’s Houdini reincarnated,” Jack said with obvious frustration. “I assume you’re Marisa?” She gave him a brief nod, and he gestured her toward the front door. “Welcome to the zoo.”

“I need to get some things from my car,” she said. “I jumped out when I saw David racing across the grass and no adult in sight.” She couldn’t keep the thick disapproval from her voice.

“I didn’t know he’d escaped,” he replied with a grimace. “Get whatever you need and come on in.” He didn’t wait for her reply, but instead disappeared into the house.

Marisa headed back to her car and tried to still the crazy butterflies that had gone dancing in her stomach at the sight of him. She couldn’t remember when just looking at a man had caused such a visceral reaction. Certainly when she’d first met Patrick she hadn’t felt the burst of heat that the sight of Jack had evoked.

The man was a mess, she reminded herself as she grabbed her purse and briefcase from the passenger seat.

Still, as she headed toward the front door she steeled herself against his obvious attractiveness. She was here to contemplate a job and nothing more. She had a boyfriend, her life was on track and the last thing she needed was for some thirty-year-old drummer with a disastrous history rocking her world.

She swept through the front door and into a small entry and then into a large living room that was obviously the heart of the house.

Jack stood in the center of the room, which was littered with toys and kids’ clothes and had the faint scent of a dirty diaper. The boys were wrestling on the floor, and as Jack looked at her, once again his soft gray eyes held an appeal. “I need help.”

She felt her resolve not to get involved fading away. He looked so utterly helpless in the midst of the chaos. “Is there someplace we can sit and chat?” she asked.

“Boys, why don’t you go to your room and play,” Jack said.

David jumped up and smiled at Marisa. “Watch,” he said, then hopped on one foot down the hallway. The other boy followed his brother, and the two of them disappeared from view.

Jack swept a handful of blocks and toy trucks off the sofa and gestured her to have a seat. Then he sat in the chair opposite the sofa.

“I’ve had the boys in my custody for almost four months,” he said. “They came to me undisciplined and wild, and as you can see, I haven’t managed to change things much in the time that I’ve had them.”

“Exactly what are you looking for from me, Mr. Cortland?” she asked.

“Jack, please make it Jack.” He smiled, but the gesture didn’t quite erase the worry from his eyes. “Isn’t it obvious that I need somebody to train the boys and to teach them how to behave?”

Marisa didn’t think Jack was ready to hear that. In her experience it was usually the parents who needed training, not the children.

At the moment she saw nothing of the hard-rock star. What she saw was a concerned father worried about his sons. She held on to her heart. There was something about Jack Cortland that made her think that if she allowed it, it would take about five minutes for her to fall crazy in love with him.

But of course she wouldn’t allow it. She wasn’t even sure she was going to take this job. Just because Jack had beautiful gray eyes fringed with sinfully long lashes, just because he had lips that looked as if they could drive a woman wild didn’t mean she was eager to work as a nanny for him.

She opened her briefcase and pulled out a sheath of papers. “Here are my credentials and references,” she said as she held them out toward him.

He waved his hand in the air. “Trust me, I’ve already checked you out, Ms. Perez. I wasn’t about to allow just anyone into my home with my boys.” He shot her a level gaze. “You graduated from college with a degree in early childhood education. You’re twenty-seven years old, live alone and you’re particularly close to your aunt Rita, who has worked as an FBI agent for the last twenty years.”

Marisa raised an eyebrow. “Please, call me Marisa,” she said, impressed by the fact that he’d done his homework where she was concerned. “How many other people do you have working for you here in the home?” she asked. “I need to know who the children interact with on a daily basis.”

“I have a cook who comes in the morning and leaves right after she fixes the evening meal. Other than that, it’s pretty much just me. The nanny Candace had used for the boys got another job.”

“No housekeeper?” she asked.

One corner of his mouth turned up in a rueful grin as he looked pointedly around the room. “If I had a housekeeper, I would have definitely fired her by now.”

“You understand this would be a live-in position,” she said.

“There’s a spare bedroom across from the boys’ room. You’d have your own private bath and of course free access to the rest of the house.” He leaned forward in his chair. “Tell me you’ll take the job, Marisa. You have no idea how important this is to me.”

But she did see how important it was to him. A frantic desperation shone from his eyes, something that looked remarkably like fear.

There was more going on here than just his need for her to teach the boys to be well-behaved. She was definitely intrigued.

The fee she collected from this job would put the final dollars in her bank account that she needed to start her business, but she had no idea how far Jack had come from the bad-boy rocker he had once been. Was this really a man she wanted to work for?

“Okay,” she heard herself saying before she even knew she’d made a conscious decision. “But I have a condition.”

“Just name it,” he exclaimed.

“We agree to a weeklong probationary period. If at the end of that week you wish to terminate me, or I decide to leave, then you pay me for the week and I’m on my way. At the end of that week if we’re both agreeable, then I have a contract to sign that will assure me two months here.”

“Just two months?” he asked.

“I’m a troubleshooter. I only work temporary positions. If you’re looking for somebody for long-term, then when I finish my two months I’ll help you hire somebody for a permanent position.”

“Sounds reasonable to me. When can you start?”

“Tomorrow morning around nine?”

“Perfect,” he said with a sigh of relief. She stood and so did he.

She was far too aware of him just behind her as she walked back to the front door. She turned back to him, finding him standing ridiculously close to her. The scent of him washed over her, a clean scent coupled with the faint remnants of a spicy cologne.

She stepped back, her breath catching in her chest as that crazy surge of heat swept through her. He held out his hand, and she stared at it for a long moment, almost afraid to touch him, afraid of how that touch might make her feel.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” she said as he awkwardly dropped his hand to his side. She flew out the door and hurried toward her car.