The Millionaire's Cinderella Wife

The breeze caught her words and took them away out to sea, so she said it again, louder. “I’m—on—vacation!” And then she laughed.

It felt good.

But it got more complicated as soon as she heard Ty’s voice, calling her from downstairs. The vacation came with conditions and obligations attached.

“I need to get back to the marina,” he told her as soon as she came down to him. He already had car keys jingling in his hand. “How about I drop you at your hotel on the way? Then you can check out, and—You drove from Ohio, right, so you have your car?”

“Yes.”

“Can you find your way back here? I’ll give you a map for back-up. And a key, of course, and a garage door opener. The alarm’s easy. I’ll show you the code.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“And your folks are okay?”

“Seem to be.” She didn’t mention Dad’s blood sugar, or Lena’s doubts about the proposed length of her absence. Maybe this really would only take a few days.

She noticed that Ty had never actually asked if she agreed to his plan. He just assumed she’d found the house and the sleeping arrangements satisfactory and her family’s reassurances good enough. Typical, on his part. But she didn’t feel inclined to protest about his assumptions now.

“So drop off your stuff here,” he said. “Get settled in your room, have coffee, sunbake on the deck, whatever you want.”

“Type up something on your computer and fax it to Ohio?”

“Sure. I’ll leave you my cell number in case you have any trouble with the machine.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“Then it would be…really useful…if you could meet me at the marina office, in a very public way, and we can go for lunch at the bar. That’s pretty casual. Tonight, dinner at Nautilus would be great, and that’s dressier, so if you didn’t bring the right clothes I can give you the names of a couple of boutiques and you can shop for something this afternoon.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll cover the tab, of course. Tomorrow—shades of irony, here—I’m dining with the mayor, who’s a friend, and it’ll be pretty formal, so if you could get a second dress—”

“How about you print out the full program for me with wardrobe requirements, as a handy reference,” she cut in.

He stopped with his hand stretched to open the door leading to the double garage, and looked at her.

She glared at him. “Don’t say that thing about sucking on a lemon again, okay?”

“Actually, I was going to apologize.”

“For the lemon thing?”

“For bull-dozing you too much. Do you need more time? Are you committed to this?”

“Are you offering me an out?”

“We’ve both agreed on an out where it counts, with the marriage.”

Not “our” marriage, she noticed. Just “the” marriage. As impersonal as you could get. Not that she wanted to argue with that. But it was…sad. Even after so long.

“I’m committed,” she said.

Maybe if they could spend a few civilized, conflict-free days together, she wouldn’t go home to Ohio with quite such a sense that they’d both failed. Maybe she would discover why his admission of need seemed important.

“Great!” he answered. “We can make this work exactly the way we need it to, I know it.” Sierra would have liked a couple of words added, like “thanks” and “I really appreciate it,” but she wasn’t surprised when they didn’t happen.

In his garage, she discovered the silver Porsche, holding pride of place right in the middle, with plenty of space on all sides. The poor, loyal old decoy sedan was relegated to a stretch of raked gravel at the side of the house, where anyone snooping around would see it and think it belonged to the yard man or the cleaner.

They roared back into town in the Porsche, and when Sierra went to the hotel’s front desk to check out after Ty had roared off again, the man at the desk asked her at once, “You a friend of Mr. Garrett’s?”

“Sort of,” she said. Not the answer Ty would have wanted, so she added, “His wife, actually.” She saw the raised eyebrows across the desk, but didn’t deal with them because she was too busy dealing with the strange feeling inside her.

Ty’s wife.

She’d said those words so proudly and so happily for four years, all through college. Then she’d gotten her first teaching job and he’d left town, and she’d never said them again.

Who knew it would churn her up so much, saying them now?

Chapter Three

Ty’s marina office was crowded when Sierra arrived back there and let herself quietly in the front door, at just on twelve-thirty. She’d changed into black stretch pants, open-toed shoes and a pretty pink top. She’d also let her hair fall loose down her back, painted her toenails to match the top, and put on dangly earrings and a gold bracelet, in the hope that she looked right for her new role as the wife of a wealthy man in a casual waterfront town.

She counted eight women milling around the space, after their morning sailing class. Six of them were young, skinny and gorgeous, while the other two would have passed for young, skinny and gorgeous in a softer light. There was also a single, solitary male, around twenty-five, who looked as if he couldn’t believe he’d been so lucky today. Cookie stood behind the desk, dealing with questions and the phone.

“So fun!” said a tanned blonde.

“I’m going to take a week of full-day classes,” replied someone else.