Marriage by Mistake

tell me what's wrong with me." Troy's voice went whimsical. "I'm actually here to lecture you."
    Dean glanced up sharply.
    "Now don't jump all over me." Troy hitched a hip on the edge of Dean's desk. "You know you deserve one."
    "I have no idea what you're talking about."
    "Come on, Dean. You haven't told her the truth, have you?"
    Dean raised a brow. "The truth?" Surely Troy didn't expect him to tell Kelly what he really thought of her just then, which was pure dirt.
    Troy sighed. "The hypnosis, Dean. You haven't told her the truth about the hypnosis."
    Oh, that . Dean lowered his brow. He sat down and opened a desk drawer. "Of course I told her. She knows I was acting under hypnotic suggestion when I met and married her. That's why she's here."
    "But she doesn't know what the hypnotic suggestion was."
    Dean frowned at the contents of the drawer. "So?"
    "So?" Troy straightened off the desk. " So ?"
    "She doesn't need to know."
    Troy's eyebrows shot into his hairline. "Like hell she doesn't! She thinks you were tricked into marrying her."
    "I was."
    "Bull."
    Slowly, Dean stood up. Troy was off base here, completely off base. That had to be why Dean's heart was galloping. "She doesn't know anything about hypnosis. She would misunderstand."
    "Or maybe understand all too well." Troy set his palms on Dean's desk. "You wanted to marry her."
    Dean clenched his jaw and placed his palms opposite Troy's. "I wanted to have sex with her."
    "You did both."
    "Yes," Dean hissed. "Because I couldn't get the one without the other."
    That gave Troy pause. His eyes narrowed. "I told you to do what you wanted, instead of what you should. You wouldn't have married her unless you'd wanted to."
    Dean snorted. "Sure I wanted to—that night."
    The two men's gazes locked. Dean's breathing wasn't as steady as he'd have liked. He hated what he'd done, the stupidity and impetuousness, and now he had to stand here and confess it all to Troy. But that was better than having anyone think he'd wanted this marriage, for God's sake.
    Slowly, Troy straightened. His expression turned quizzical. "You're telling me the marriage was only a means to an end?"
    Dean rolled his eyes. "Elementary, my dear Watson."
    "But—"
    "Troy. Do I share a single interest or value with this woman?"
    "But—"
    "Do I?"
    Troy's brows tangled. He didn't bother trying to answer Dean's question. "Only a means to an end. You're saying you were considering divorce, even as you were pronouncing vows?"
    "No." Dean wasn't ready to condemn himself that far. "I'm saying I wasn't thinking about the consequences. I wasn't thinking about anything but what I wanted at that moment." Namely, sex. Completely uninhibited sex. Dean didn't have to remember to figure out that much.
    "Oh." Troy's frown eased. "You mean, you were acting like the rest of us."
    Dean looked away. "Not all men are completely irresponsible."
    "No, just the ones in our family." Troy laughed.
    Dean's jaw set. "I don't intend to carry on that tradition." And so far in his life, he hadn't. He had a trust fund, too, but that hadn't kept him from making his own way in the world. He'd worked hard about things that mattered. Last year the FDA had approved a drug for multiple sclerosis that his company had developed.
    But Troy was still smirking. "Mm hm. You're responsible, straight and narrow—which is why you choose to conceal the truth about the hypnosis from your wife."
    Dean's teeth crunched together. "It's not concealment."
    "Then what would you call it?"
    "I'd call it—intelligence. Kelly came home with me for one purpose only: to find out 'who I am.'"
    "And—?"
    "And—I don't want the waters muddied with some fantasy I'm something I am not ."
    "Uh huh ."
    Dean only barely kept himself from slapping his palms on his desk. "I don't want her to create a fantasy of something I am not, and never could be. Or even want to be." Love , she had said.
    When hell froze over.
    But Troy's brows arched. "It's rather unclear, though, exactly what you want to be."
    Dean glared at him. "Not in the least—to me. But apparently it's unclear to you, and very probably would be to her. Please realize she's already confused by how I behaved for two days—behavior I can't even remember !"
    Troy's amusement sobered. "Another mystery," he murmured. "I didn't suggest for you to forget."
    The men's eyes locked again. A feeling like panic crept up Dean's throat. It was a mystery, indeed. How could he walk out of a donut shop and suddenly