Marriage by Mistake

Stanford Hunsington, III, panted as he turned to watch the ball bounce from the carefully maintained Club tennis court and fly into the fence. "That's game and match," he groaned, but he smiled ruefully as he came up to the net to shake Troy's hand.
    "It was just good luck," Troy replied. He was always modest about tennis, even though he spent enough time and effort on the game to deserve the number of wins he collected every week at the Club.
    Lately, he'd been spending even more time at the Club than usual. It was too hard to hang around the house, watching Kelly get ignored by Dean.
    Now Emery shook his head of thinning blond hair. "If that was luck, then you ought to go to Vegas."
    Troy's easy smile faltered. He retrieved it quickly, however, before the other man could guess he'd rippled Troy's equanimity. "Maybe," he agreed. "Maybe I should do just that."
    Emery jogged off toward the showers, running late for some board meeting or other. Troy, who had nowhere to be late to, followed at a more leisurely rate, strolling down the hedge-bounded walkway and thinking about Las Vegas and the marriage his cousin, Dean, had entered into there. As far as Troy could tell, that marriage was going exactly where he'd predicted: south, and in a big hurry.
    It was too bad, really. Having gotten to know Kelly a little over the past few days, Troy was starting to like her. She was nice, she was genuine, she was...all right. She could probably warm up that cold house of theirs. But Dean? Oh, Dean had the vision of a mole sometimes.
    Troy reached the end of the hedge-bordered path where the courtyard opened in front of the gym and showers. He idly gazed down the path that led to the other set of tennis courts. There, as if thinking about Dean could conjure the woman, was Felicia. Felicia, wearing a blindingly pink tank top and a short, white tennis skirt. Though she walked toward the gym, indicating that she, too, had just finished a match of tennis, she looked cool and unruffled, without a hair out of place or a drop of sweat. She strode toward the courtyard with the walk debutantes practiced and she had perfected; cool, refined grace, entirely stripped of the sexual.
    Troy scuffed to a halt. He felt an instantaneous, and unfortunately familiar, urge to heat up and ruffle her. He'd like to see a few of her silky blond hairs out of place. He would absolutely love to see her sweat. And look sexual.
    His response to her made no earthly sense. The woman was interested in Dean , for heaven's sake. Why was Troy attracted to a woman who was not only a do-gooding, whip-cracking ice queen, but who preferred Dean ?
    He didn't know the answer, he only knew how hard it was to drag his gaze up from her long, thoroughbred legs. "Felicia," he said, since she was nearly in front of him and some kind of salutation was required.
    "Troy." Her tone could have frosted a volcano. But still, it was somehow polite. Felicia could do that, put you in your place while skirting the correct side of good manners.
    The problem was that the more politely frosted she got, the hotter Troy became. And the angrier. He didn't want to be turned on by her. Curving his lips into an insolent smile, he balanced his tennis racket on his shoulder. Then he did what he usually did with Felicia: got mean.
    "Fancy meeting you here," he drawled. "I would have thought you'd be too busy to play tennis during the day, what with all those heartbreakingly good works you do." He swept his gaze from the bright pink curve of her breasts to those long, slender legs. "But I suppose we have to keep our girlish figure somehow."
    Felicia's eyes were snapping when Troy looked up again, just as he'd planned. Her ice looked, for a minute, hot.
    If only he didn't like her looking hot so much, this conversation might not go the way all of them did. Asinine.
    Meanwhile, she recovered her sang-froid quickly, calming the heat in her eyes and giving Troy a brilliant smile. "A healthy life is a balanced one." She rested her tennis racket on her shoulder, mirroring Troy. "Which reminds me, since you mentioned good works, I wanted to talk to Dean about the Boston Family Aid Foundation. We need to hire a professional fundraiser. If you get a chance—" Felicia's casual smile widened—"will you ask him to call me?"
    Troy squinted. Yep, it was going asinine, and she wasn't helping. She knew damn well he wasn't going to be her messenger boy. "Why can't you call him yourself?"
    "I have." Felicia's wide