The Millionaire's Marriage

“Do you really think that would have made him feel any better, when the damage had been done already? His beloved child had been deflowered by a man he’d welcomed into his home and treated like a son. He thought the sun rose and set on you. Still does. What was to be gained by letting him know you’d come to my room uninvited? Why the devil would I have wanted to add to his misery by telling him that?”

“If it makes any difference at all, Max, he knew I was as much to blame as you, and he forgave both of us long ago.”

“But I haven’t forgiven myself. And I sure as hell haven’t forgiven you.”

She sank down on the bench at the foot of the bed, and he saw that the slump to her shoulders was not, as he’d first assumed, that she was dejected so much as utterly exhausted. “Then why did you agree to our pretending we’re happily married?”

“Because I owe it to him. He’s eighty-one years old, his health is failing, and I refuse to send him to his grave a day earlier than necessary by letting him in on the true state of our relationship.”

“He might be old, but he’s not blind. If you’re going to curl your lip in contempt every time you look at me, and recoil from any sort of physical contact, he’ll figure out for himself within twenty-four hours of getting here that we’re a long way from living in wedded bliss. And my mother won’t take a tenth that long to arrive at the same conclusion.”

“What are you suggesting, my dear?” he inquired scornfully. “That in order to continue bamboozling them, we practice married intimacy by holding an undress rehearsal tonight?”

Color rode up her neck, a pale apricot tint so delicious it almost made his mouth water. “We don’t have to go quite that far, but would it be such a bad idea to practice being civil to one another?”

“Depends on your definition of ‘civil.’”

“I won’t initiate sex when you’re not looking, if that’s what’s worrying you, Max. Subjecting myself to your outright rejection no longer holds any appeal for me.”

“I’d be more inclined to take that assurance seriously if we were occupying separate beds.”

He waited for the reproaches to follow, a variation on her old theme of You don’t even try to understand how I feel, followed by a crying spell. Instead, she stood up and faced him, her spine poker-straight and her expression uncharacteristically flat. “I won’t dignify that remark by trying to refute it. Believe whatever you like, do whatever you like. For myself, I haven’t eaten since early this morning, so I’m going downstairs to fix myself a light supper.”

“You look as if you haven’t eaten in a month or more, if you ask me,” he shot back, irked by her snooty attitude. He wasn’t used to being blown off like that, nor was he about to put up with it. “And if how you look now is what being stylishly thin’s all about, give me good, old-fashioned chubby any day of the week.”

“I can’t imagine why you’d care how I look, Max, and I’m certainly not fool enough to think your remark stems from concerns about my health.” She brushed a surprisingly badly manicured hand over her outfit, a cotton blouse and skirt which whispered alluringly over silky underthings. “What you apparently aren’t able to accept is that what you prefer in a woman is immaterial. I’d like it better if we could be cordial with each other because it’s a lot less wearing than being disagreeable. But you need to accept the fact that I’m long past the stage where your approval is of the slightest consequence to me.”

If she’d slapped him, he couldn’t have been more stunned. The Gabriella he used to know would have turned cartwheels through downtown Vancouver during the afternoon rush hour, if she’d thought it would please him. “But you still need me, Gabriella,” he reminded her. “Why else are you here?”

“Only for the next two weeks. After that, I’ll be as happy to leave you to wallow in your own misery as you’ll be to see me go.”

Well, hell! Baffled, he shook his head as she stalked out of the room. This new, underfed edition of the woman he’d married didn’t believe in mincing her words—or give a flying fig about anything he might say or do as long as he didn’t blow her cover during her parents’ visit.

On the surface at least, a lot more than just her dress size had changed since she’d entered the world of international fashion. Unless it was just another act put on solely for his benefit, his wife appeared to have developed a little backbone since she’d flounced out of his life within six months of forcing her way into it!

She was shaking inside, her composure on the verge of collapse. Perhaps it was the cruel irony of the setting: the big marriage bed, so invitingly close they could have tumbled onto the mattress together in a matter of seconds if the mood had taken them, juxtaposed beside her finely tuned awareness of his unabashed animosity. Or perhaps it was as simple as his having shown up unexpectedly and taken her by surprise. In any event, she had to get away from him before she burst into tears of pure frustration.

Given that he’d acted as if she was the last person he wanted to spend time with, she didn’t expect him to follow her downstairs, but he showed up in the kitchen about five minutes later to announce, “I’ve taken your luggage up to the bedroom.”

“I could have managed it on my own, but thank you anyway,” she said, laying out the French bread, cold barbecued chicken, olives, heart of palm salad, and mango salsa she’d purchased at the gourmet deli down the street.

He ambled over to inspect the food. “That chicken looks pretty good.”

“Are you hinting you’d like some?” She pulled a chef’s knife and fork from the wooden cutlery block next to the countertop cook surface and slid the chicken from its foil-lined bag to a cutting board.

“If you’re offering, yes. Thanks.” He helped himself to an olive and cast an appraising eye over the changes she’d made in the kitchen. “You’ve been busy. This place almost looks lived in.”

Choosing her words carefully because, although she itched to ask him who owned the apron and hand lotion, she wasn’t about to give him another opportunity to tell her to mind her own business, she said, “It had a somewhat unused look, I thought.”

“Because I’d stored all the china and stuff you left behind, you mean? Not everyone appreciates fine things, Gabriella, and knowing how you value yours and would eventually want to reclaim them, it seemed best not to leave them where they might get damaged.”

She managed an offhand shrug. “But you were always very careful with them…unless, of course, you’re referring to…other people?”

“What you’re really asking is if I ever let another woman loose in here.” He removed two of the wineglasses she’d arranged in the upper cabinet, then strolled behind her to the refrigerator. She heard him rummaging among its contents, and the clink of a bottle tapping the edge of a shelf before he swung the door closed. “Well, as it happens, I did. For about a month, beginning the week after you left.”

Hearing him confirm her worst fears shocked Gabriella into betraying the kind of distress she’d sworn she’d never let him witness in her again. “You mean to say you didn’t even wait until the sheets had grown cold before you let another woman into my bed?” she squeaked, and refusing to vent her outrage where it truly belonged—on him!—she accosted the hapless chicken, wielding the knife with savage intent. “Why doesn’t that surprise me, I wonder?”

“I didn’t say that.” Calmly, he rummaged in one of the drawers for a corkscrew.

“Not in so many words, perhaps, but the implication is clear enough! And so is the evidence!” Brandishing the two-pronged fork, she gestured at the drawer. That drawer! “I saw what’s in there, so don’t bother denying it.”

He laughed. “And what is it that you saw, my dear? A body?”

“Don’t you dare laugh at me!” Hearing her voice threatening to soar to top C, she made a concerted effort to wrestle herself under control. “I found the apron and the hand lotion.”

“Well, as long as you didn’t also find high heels and panty hose, at least you don’t need to worry you’re married to a cross-dresser.”

“Worry? About you?” she fairly screeched, aiming such a wild blow at the chicken carcass that a wing detached itself and slid crazily across the counter. “Let me assure you, Max Logan, that I can find better things to occupy my mind!”

Suddenly, shockingly, he was touching her, coming from behind to close one hand hard around her wrist, while the other firmly removed the knife from her grasp and placed it a safe distance away. “Keep that up and you’ll be hacking your fingers off next.”

“As if you’d care!”

“As a matter of fact, I would. I don’t fancy little bits of you accidentally winding up on my plate.”

“You heartless, insensitive ape!” She spun around, the dismay she’d fought so hard to suppress fomenting into blinding rage. “This is all one huge joke to you, isn’t it? You don’t care one iota about the hurt you inflict on others with your careless words.”

“It’s the hurt you were about to inflict on yourself that concerns me.” As if he were the most domesticated husband on the face of the earth, he pushed her aside and started carving the chicken. “You’re already worried your parents might guess we’re not exactly nuts about each another, without your showing up at the airport tomorrow bandaged from stem to stern and giving them extra cause for concern.”

“Don’t exaggerate. I’m perfectly competent in a kitchen, as you very well know.”

He jerked his head at the unopened bottle of Pouilly Fuissé. “Then make yourself useful and uncork that.”

“Do it yourself,” she snapped, the thought of how quickly he’d taken up with someone else once she’d vacated the scene rankling unbearably. She had honored her wedding vows. Why couldn’t he have done the same?

“Now who’s being unnecessarily hostile?”

She detected marked amusement in his voice. Deciding it was safest to keep her hands busy with something harmless lest she forgot herself so far as to take a meat cleaver to him, she began preparing a tray with plates, cutlery and serviettes. “At least,” she said, “I haven’t given you grounds for divorce.”

“There are some who’d say a wife walking out on her husband is ample grounds for terminating a marriage.”

“Then why haven’t you taken steps to end ours?”

Finished with the chicken, he turned his attention to the wine. “Because we agreed there was no pressing need to formalize matters, especially given your parents’ age, health and religious convictions.” He angled a hooded glance her way. “Unless, of course, you’ve found some urgent reason…?”

“I’m not the one who went out shopping for a replacement within a week and had the bad taste to leave his possessions lying around for you to find!”

“Neither am I, Gabriella,” he said mildly, his mood improving markedly as hers continued to deteriorate. “The woman you perceive to be such a threat was a fifty-nine-year-old housekeeper I hired to come in on a daily basis to keep the place clean and prepare my meals. The arrangement came to an end by mutual agreement after one month because there wasn’t enough to keep her busy and she was a lousy cook. She must have left some of her stuff behind by mistake.”