Marriage To A Stranger

Lara stared at him in amazement. “Conley, what you need is to rest! You can’t work right now.”

“I can’t just sit here,” he said in a tight voice. “I’ll go nuts.”

“Then here—” she handed him the remote “—watch a little TV. Do nothing for a change. Relax. That’s what normal people do sometimes, you know.”

He started to reply but the telephone rang. Lara crossed the room to answer it, and Theresa Marchante replied to her cool hello.

“Lara, is Conley there? I stopped by the hospital and they told me he’d checked out.”

“We got home a little while ago, Theresa. Would you like to talk to him?”

“I’m afraid I have to. It’s about the Baku situation….”

Without another word, Lara handed her husband the phone then stepped out of the room. He was going to work, with or without her help, so she might as well leave him to it.

In the kitchen Lara started dinner, her mind hopping from one thing to another. Her thoughts landed, as she knew they would, back on Conley’s behavior at the hospital. She opened the refrigerator and pulled out a bunch of onions to chop for the soup. He hadn’t wanted to talk to the police, that much had been obvious. If her presence in the room had been the main factor, why?

Her fertile imagination had Lara coming up with more answers than she needed. The knife flashed as she listed them in her mind, but all the variations centered on one thing: the Other Problem.

Conley was having an affair.

Lara didn’t know who the woman was and she didn’t want to know, but she recognized the signs; in her business, she had learned them all. Through the years, though, she’d studied Conley as well and that was how she’d finally figured it out. He’d been hiding something from her for months now. Not to mention the nights he didn’t come home. Or the times he raced to pick up the phone when they were both at home. And then there was the note, of course. The classic giveaway.

It was so clichéd, she’d wanted to throw up. On her way to the cleaners, she’d found a crumpled e-mail in one of his pockets. The message was clear, the point so personal and graphic, Lara’s guts had been turned inside out. She’d gone home and searched their computer for more. She’d found an encrypted file, but hadn’t been able to get past his security password. She was sure it held other e-mails.

She’d asked him point-blank if he was having an affair. He’d looked at her as if she’d sprouted horns then denied it—just as she’d known he would. That was when she’d moved out of the master bedroom.

A sound from the doorway brought her head up. She wondered how long he’d been standing there and watching her.

Their eyes connected over the kitchen table. “I think I need one of those pills Sorelli gave us. Do you have them?”

Lara nodded and wiped her hands on her apron. “They’re in my purse. I’ll get them for you.”

She handed him the medicine and a glass of water a few seconds later. When he finished, he set the glass on the counter with a sigh. He looked worn-out.

She spoke without thinking. “Why don’t you go back into the den and rest? I’ll bring you your soup on a tray.”

“You don’t mind?” He ran a hand through his dark hair, leaving it spiked and wavy. “Waiting on me like this?”

“You can’t very well do it yourself, can you?”

“No, but it’s been a long time since you did anything like that.”

“It’s been a long time since you’ve been around so that I could.”

Without a word, he turned around and went back into the den. Angry at herself for the pettiness, Lara returned to the sink.

An hour later, when she walked into the den with a wooden tray in her hands, Conley was asleep. Sprawled on the couch, he had a pillow tucked under his swollen knee and another one behind his head. In his restlessness, he’d already managed to throw off the afghan. It lay in a brightly colored pile at the foot of the sofa.

Lara put the tray on a nearby table and picked up the wool throw. Fluffing it out, she bent over to put it across his sleeping form, but it was too short; it barely covered his torso and the top part of his legs. Stretching it as far as the yarn would allow, she bent to her knees and tucked it in around him, then she stopped and looked at his bruised face.

Even in rest, Conley looked fierce and anxious, tension etching its way across his features. She reached out and gently smoothed a lock of dark hair that had escaped to curl over his brow. Long and silky, it was softer than she remembered. He was such a handsome man, she thought with a catch in her throat. Lean and hungry-looking, he was the type women glanced at then imagined in bed.

Her hand drifted lower, down to the edge of his jaw. A line of steel that never bent. His chin was dark with the shadow of his stubble, his skin felt warm, as warm as the rest of his body had been as she’d helped him inside. She let her touch linger for a moment, her eyes on the pulse at the bottom of his throat.

How many times had she kissed him in that spot?

How many times had he done the same to her?

For one crazy minute she thought about pressing her lips against his neck, then she came to her senses.

What was she doing? She’d told this man she wanted to end their marriage. She’d told him she wanted a divorce. She’d told herself she didn’t love him anymore.

She’d told the truth.

Hadn’t she?

CHAPTER FOUR

CONLEY HUNG UP the phone and started rearranging the papers in the file spread over his mahogany desk. It was busywork and nothing more, and with an angry curse, he stood and limped to the window that covered one wall of his office. In the crystal-blue distance, the Rocky Mountains glistened, their towering peaks blanketed in a thick layer of pristine snow, dotted with patches of green firs. Filled with a sense of doom, he stared out at the stunning view.

He’d gotten the first call the day after his accident. A second one had come the day after that. By the end of the week, it was clear his mishap hadn’t escaped the notice of his investors. Suspicious and wary, it was almost as if they’d been told about the other incidents. With no options left, he’d flown to Houston that weekend and met the primaries in an elegant hotel. The gracious surroundings had done nothing to smooth their worried brows. To say they hadn’t been happy was more than an understatement.

The shit had hit the fan.

They’d given him an ultimatum: Get security and get it immediately. Call the police. Call the FBI. Call whoever it takes, but have the stalker found and stopped. And by the way, make damn sure no one hears about this, either. No one.

Conley shook his head. He couldn’t deny their logic. The tech market was shaky enough on a good day; publicity as potentially bad as this could put a spike right through the heart of Harrison’s. The whole company would go straight down the tubes. This morning—a week since his accident—he’d brought Matthew Oakley in and discussed the situation, explaining the nervous investors and their desire for security. Matthew had reacted just as Conley had known he would.

“This makes my point, Con,” he’d said. “We need to move on the glass chip. I’m telling you, it’s the best way for us to get on top. The money guys will forget about everything when they hear about this idea.”

Standing beside Conley’s desk, Matthew had worn a familiar expression—one of stubborn persistence. Quiet and self-effacing, the gifted designer understood the world of computer chips better than anyone Conley had ever known. But he was also invisible. Light-brown hair, nondescript eyes, average height and weight. When he walked into a room, no one ever saw Matthew. Even fewer listened when he talked. And so he was dismissed.

But not by Conley. He’d recognized Matthew’s intelligence instantly.

Matthew put his hands on the desk. “Let me run with it, Con. We can’t wait any longer. Somebody else will jump in there.”

They’d had this discussion too many times to count. Matthew had designed a chip—on his own—that he wanted Harrison’s to sell. But Conley wasn’t willing to go forward. There had been problems with the preliminary run and even more had been discovered in the beta testing phase. If Harrison’s delivered a product before the bugs had been worked out, the harm the company could suffer would be greater than missing the market completely.

“I can’t do that, Matthew.” Conley had shook his head. “Not now. Not yet. It’s not ready and neither is the company. You’ve still got some problems with that chip and I’m not putting Harrison’s name on it until those are solved.”

The expression on Matthew’s face had said it all. Anger, then resentment, then acceptance. “Okay,” he’d sighed. “You’re the boss. You know best.”

Right, Conley thought now.

His company and his marriage were two trains on parallel tracks, each heading toward the edge of the canyon with no bridge in sight. I’m the boss, he thought. And I know…shit.

A knock sounded on his office door. Turning painfully, his leg still sore, Conley called out and the door opened.