The Bought-and-Paid-For Wife

Their eyes clashed in a lightning bolt that was eight parts antagonism, two parts challenge. She knew, a split second before he moved, before his hands came up to trap her against the wall, that the two parts challenge was two parts too much. And still she couldn’t back down, even when his gaze dropped to her lips and caused a slow sweet ripple in her blood. Even when he muttered something low and unintelligible—perhaps an oath, perhaps a warning—beneath his breath.

Then his mouth descended to hers, catching her gasp of indignation.

For a second she was too stunned by the sensation of his lips pressed against hers to react. Everything was new, untried, unfamiliar. The bold presence of his mouth, the rough texture of his skin, the elemental taste of rain and sun and man.

Everything was unexpected except the electric charge that flushed through her skin and tightened her breasts. That was the same as when he’d touched her, the same as when he’d watched her walk away, the same as when she’d turned at the library door and caught him staring.

She heard the accelerated thud of her heartbeat and scrambled to compose herself, to reject that unwanted response. But then he shifted his weight slightly and she felt the brush of his jacket against her bare arm. For some reason that slide of body-warmed fabric seemed more intimate than the kiss itself, and the effect shimmered through her skin like liquid silk.

The hands she’d raised to shove him away flattened against his chest and the slow beat of his heart resonated into her palms. With a shock she realized that she wasn’t only touching him but kissing him back, just now, for one split second. Oh, no. A thousand times no. Her eyes jolted open, wide and appalled, as she pushed with renewed purpose.

His mouth stilled for one measured second before he let her go. The message was clear. He’d instigated this. He was ending it. Damn him. And damn her traitorous body for reacting to whatever weird male-female chemistry was going on between them.

Red-hot anger hazed her vision and she lashed out without conscious thought. He dodged her easily, catching her arm before she came close to landing a blow. And that only infuriated her more. She wrenched at her captured arm and the jerky action caught the Lladro Girl with Flowers she’d set down on the cabinet.

In slow motion she saw the delicate figurine start to topple but she couldn’t move fast enough. The sound of its shattering impact on the marble floor filled the silence for several long brittle seconds. Vanessa pressed the back of one trembling hand to her mouth, as if that might silence the anguished cry deep inside her.

But when she started to duck down, he intercepted her, his hand on her arm holding her steady. “Leave it. It’s only an ornament.”

An ornament, yes, but this one was a gift from her childhood—a symbol of where she’d come from and all she’d dreamed of leaving behind.

But only a symbol, her pragmatic side reminded her. She’d had to grow up too practical for dreams and symbolism. This incident signified only one thing: she’d allowed Tristan Thorpe to cut through her cool, to upset her enough that she’d lashed out in temper.

And she would eat dirt before she gave him the satisfaction of knowing how deeply he’d affected her.

“Are you all right?”

The softened edge to his voice caught her off guard, but she shrugged that aside along with his touch. He was probably worried that she’d start weeping and wailing. Or that she’d turn and throw some more of her ornaments at his infuriating head.

No doubt it was as hard and as cold as the marble tiles underfoot.

Gathering the shards of her poise, she turned and met his eyes. “I will be fine once you get out of my house.”

The concern she’d detected in his voice turned steel-hard. The muscle she’d noted earlier jumped in his jaw again. “You enjoy your house while you can, duchess.”

“Meaning?”

“It won’t be yours once I prove your adultery. Not the house, not any of these pretty things you’re so concerned about breaking. All bought and paid for with Thorpe money.”

“Good luck with that,” she said coldly, while the anger resurged with new fervor. She had to get out of here before she did start hurling things at him, if only to show how little they mattered. “If you’ll excuse me, I have another appointment. If you have anything else to say, please say it through my lawyer.”

“That’s it?”

“Except for one last thing…Please close the door on your way out.”

Tristan hadn’t planned on following her. After closing the front door, he’d been intent on getting to one place only—his attorney’s office in Stamford. He had a letter to deliver. He had instructions to employ the best investigator—a team of them, if necessary—to follow up every rumor about her secret assignations, to find this mystery man whatever the cost.

Even though he’d prodded her about seeing the same man today, he didn’t believe she would be foolish enough to flaunt her lover so openly. Not when she stood to lose everything she’d set her cap at when she had married the old man.

With all his focus trained on what she’d said and not said, on what he’d done and wished he hadn’t, Tristan drove straight through the intersection of White Birch Lane and Beauford when he should have turned right. Half a mile farther on he realized his error and pulled over. Waiting for a gap in the traffic, he beat himself up about missing the turn. And while he was at it, he beat himself up some more for making such a hash of his first meeting with Vanessa Thorpe.

Sure she provoked him. Everything about her had needled him long before he came face-to-face with her kick-gut beauty. But did he have to react to every goading statement, every challenging eye-meet, every disdainful lift of her chin?

Did he have to kiss her?

The hell of it was he didn’t remember making a choice. One second they were going at it, biting verbal chunks out of each other’s hides, the next he had her backed against the wall tasting the provocation of her lush lips. And the hell of that was how swiftly her taste had aroused his hunger.

He’d wanted so much more than one quick bite. His hands had itched to touch that distracting dip in her chin, to feel the creamy softness of her skin, to pull her tight against his body.

He could blame the long day, his lack of sleep, the edgy turmoil of returning to Eastwick, but in the end he could only hold himself responsible. He’d let her get to him.

He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

The flow of traffic eased and he checked his mirror just as a champagne colored convertible whizzed by. He didn’t have to see the vanity plates to know it was her. Everything on the list of possessions they’d sparred over this past year was indelibly printed on his brain.

He hadn’t planned on following her any more than he’d planned on kissing her, but as he steered into a gap in traffic Tristan had a hunch that this would turn out a whole lot more fulfilling and less frustrating than that ill-conceived meeting of mouths.

“I’m so glad you suggested this,” Vanessa said.

This was to meet by the water at Old Poynton, where the breeze drifting off Long Island Sound tempered the warmth of the late afternoon sun; where breathing the fresh marine air cooled the edgy heat of Vanessa’s temper…a little.

And you was Andy Silverman, who’d suggested the outdoor walk-and-talk when he’d called earlier to change plans.

Andy had grown up in the same Yonkers neighborhood as Vanessa’s family, and she’d recognized him as soon as he commenced working at Twelve Oaks, the special-needs facility that had been home to her younger brother for the past seven years. They met regularly to discuss Lew’s program and his progress, and Andy had become more than her brother’s counselor.

Now she counted him as a friend…the only friend who knew and understood Lew and the difficulties posed by his autism.

“Tough day at the country club?” Despite the lighthearted comment, she felt a serious edge to Andy’s sidelong look. “You want to talk about it?”

“Haven’t we just done that?”

They’d talked about Lew, as they always did, and about why Andy had cancelled their trip to the city. Storms, like today’s, were one of several triggers that upset Lew’s need for calm and routine order.

“Your brother has bad days all the time,” Andy said now. “You’re used to that.”

No. She didn’t think she would ever call herself used to Andy’s autism or his most difficult, sometimes violently damaging, days. But she conceded Andy’s perceptive point. He knew there was more worrying her today than Lew.

“I’m not sure you want to hear this,” she said.

“Hey, I’m a professional listener.”

That made her smile. “Do you charge extra for out-of-hours consultations, Dr. Silverman?”

They’d reached the end of the promenade. Andy paused and leaned against the stone wall that separated the walkway from the beach. He folded his arms across his chest. His open face and calm expression were part of what made him so good at his job. “Go ahead and spit it out. You know you want to.”

Not so much want to as need to, Vanessa silently amended. Her gaze shifted beyond her companion, tracking two windsurfers as they rode a gust of air across the clean blue surface of the Sound. Then one of the surfers slowed, faltered, and toppled into the water, his charmed ride on the wind over.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if we all had such soft landings,” she mused out loud.

“You’ve lost me.”

With a small sigh, she turned her attention back to Andy and his invitation to spit it out. “It’s Tristan Thorpe.”

Andy tsked in sympathy. “Isn’t it always?”

“He’s here. In Eastwick.”

“For the trial? I thought that wasn’t till next month.”

“He’s here because he thinks he’s found a way to beat me without going to court.” All semblance of relaxation destroyed, Vanessa paced away a couple of steps, then swung back. “Which he hasn’t, but that won’t stop him making trouble.”

“Only if you let him.”

She laughed, a short, sharp, humorless sound. “How can I stop him? He has it in his head that I’m a nasty sly adulterer and he’s here to prove it!”

To his credit, Andy barely blinked at that disclosure. She supposed, in his line of work, he heard all manner of shockers. “That’s not a problem if there’s nothing to substantiate.”

“Of course there’s nothing to substantiate!”

“But you’re upset because people might believe that of you, despite your innocence?”

“I’m upset because…because…”

Because he believes it. Because he kissed me. Because I can’t stop thinking about that.

“My point exactly,” Andy said, misinterpreting her stumble into silence. “Your friends know you well enough to not believe whatever he might put about.”

“My friends know. You know. I know,” she countered hotly, “but he’s always thought the worst of me. Now he believes I’m not only an Anna Nicole Smith clone who took advantage of a susceptible older man, but I kept a lover on the side to share my ill-gotten spoils.” She exhaled on a note of disgust. “I don’t even know why I’m surprised.”

Andy regarded her closely for a long moment. “He’s really got you stewing, hasn’t he?”

Oh, yes. In ways she didn’t want to think about, let alone talk about. She’d let him kiss her, she’d breathed the scent of him into her lungs, and then she’d raised her hand, for pity’s sake, when she despised violence born of temper and heated words and uncontrolled emotions.

“He got me so riled,” she said with quiet intensity, her stomach twisting with the pain of those long-ago memories. “I wanted to hit him, Andy.”

“But you didn’t.”

Only because he stopped me.

She could still feel the steely grip of his hand, the pressure of his fingers wrapped around her wrist, and the need to lash out raging in her blood. And the worst of it? Not the loss of her treasured gift but the acknowledgment, on the hour-plus drive up here, that she hadn’t been lashing out at him but at her fickle body’s unexpected and unwanted response.

“I told myself not to let him get under my skin. I invited him into my home when I wanted to slam the door in his face. I tried to be polite and calm. But the man is just so…so…” Unable to find a suitable descriptor, she spread her hands in a silent gesture of appeal. Except she doubted the dictionary contained a single word strong enough, hot enough, complex enough to cover all that Tristan had evoked in her that afternoon. “And it’s not only him that has me stewing.”

Suddenly she couldn’t stand still any longer. Hooking an arm through one of Andy’s folded ones, she forced him into motion, walking back toward the strip of tourist boutiques and sidewalk eateries opposite the small beach and marina.

“Someone sent him a letter. An accusation. That’s how this latest crusade of his started.” She tugged at his arm in agitation. “Who would do such a thing?”

“Did he show you this letter?”

Vanessa shook her head and in Andy’s raised brows she read another question. “Are you thinking that this letter might not exist?”

“If I were you,” he said carefully, “I’d want to see it.”

At the time she’d been too astounded and too het up by his allegations. She hadn’t thought of asking to see the evidence. Frowning, she walked and she chewed the whole exchange and its implications over in her mind. “Why would he invent this letter and come all the way over here to prove its claims? That only makes sense if he believes he can prove it. And that only makes sense if someone—such as his correspondent—has convinced him they have something on me.”

And that made no sense because she had never slept around.

Not once. Not ever.

“It’s not as if I have a pool boy,” she continued, “or a tennis pro or a personal trainer. The only male staff I employ regularly is Gloria’s Bennie, and that’s only for odd jobs to keep her happy. I see Jack, my attorney, regularly but everyone knows he’s a besotted new husband and soon-to-be father.”

“And you see me.”

Andy’s evenly spoken comment hung in the air a second before she grasped its significance. Then she stopped in her tracks, shaking her head with a slowly dawning realization. Usually they met behind the walls of Twelve Oaks’ sprawling estate, in one of the formal meeting rooms or the less formal library, or they walked around the estate’s spacious grounds.

But on occasions they did meet in the nearby town of Lexford, for lunch or a coffee. And they’d also met once or twice here at the shore where Andy lived.

“Do you think some busybody could have seen—” she waggled her hand between them, unable to voice the us that might link their friendship in a nonplatonic way “—and misconstrued?”

“It’s possible.”

Vanessa stared at him wide-eyed. Then, pity help her, she couldn’t suppress an involuntary giggle.

“Pretty funny, huh?”

“I’m sorry.” Sobering instantly, she reached out and put her hand on his arm. And that was the thing with Andy—she could touch him and feel no spark, no jolt, no prickling of heat. Nothing but a comfortable warmth similar to what she’d established with her husband and still missed so very much. “I didn’t mean to offend you. You know I love you like a brother.”

“I know that, but what about someone watching us?”

Shock immobilized her for a split second. Then she drew back her hand and her body, suddenly aware of how close they stood. As they’d done on countless other innocent occasions.

With an audience?

They continued walking, but Vanessa couldn’t stop herself from glancing at each car and passing pedestrian. Scores of people were out enjoying the gorgeous summer twilight, yet she felt exposed.

Despite the warmth of the air she felt a chill run over her skin. “I hate the thought that someone might have been following me.”

“That’s something I’ve never quite understood.”

She cut him a narrow look. “The fact that I don’t like being spied on?”

“The fact you’ve kept Lew and your visits to Twelve Oaks secret.”

“That has nothing to do with being spied on.”

“Maybe not,” he said in his usual mild manner. “But if the good folk of Eastwick knew about your brother, then they’d also understand why you need to drive up here so often and why you meet with me. That would take care of one possible misinterpretation.”

As usual, Andy was right. Except up until now she hadn’t seen any need to share this most personal part of her life. Only Stuart—plus a handful of trusted professionals and some old friends from her pre-Eastwick days—knew about Lew. Together they had decided to keep his long-term tenancy at Twelve Oaks private.

“Are you ashamed of—”

“Of course not!” Vanessa swung around to face Andy, all thoughts of being spied upon lost in the fierceness of her answer. “Don’t you dare suggest that Lew is some sort of embarrassment. I would take out a paid page in the New York Times if I thought it would help, but what would be the point? All that would accomplish is a whole lot of talk and finger-pointing from small-minded people who don’t understand.”

“And this is the society you want to live in?”

“No. This is the society I chose to live in when I married Stuart.”

Because that choice included Twelve Oaks, the exclusive facility that provided Lew with the best environment, the right therapy, everything he needed to grow and flourish as an individual. She hadn’t even dreamed of accessing such an expensive option before she met her future husband. In fact she’d been at the end of her tether, out of options for caring for Lew and dealing with his increasingly violent tendencies as he grew from a boy into a man.

“Besides,” she continued, “not everyone in Eastwick is narrow-minded. If they knew, my friends would want to visit, to help, and you know how Lew is with new people and changes to his routine. He is happy and I’m happy visiting and doing my voluntary work without it being talked about all over town. I’ve had enough poor Vanessas to last a lifetime, thank you very much!”

They resumed walking, Andy silent in a way that suggested he didn’t agree. Was she being selfish, making it easier on herself, protecting her cushy life? After Stuart’s death she had wanted to confide in her friends, because Lord knows she’d felt so incredibly alone and lonely. But then she had Gloria, who’d come from the same background, who knew Lew. PlusAndy. Two of the best friends she could have because, unlike her Eastwick friends, they’d known her when she was plain Vanessa Kotzur.

It had been easier to keep the status quo, for so many reasons.

What about now? her pragmatic side wanted to know.

“I need to see the letter,” she said with quiet resolve. Before she made any decision on what else to do, she had to see the evidence.

Andy nodded grimly. “And you need to set him straight about me.”

Vanessa’s whole system bucked in protest. She could actually feel her feet dragging on the pavement as they neared the street where she’d parked her car.

“Perhaps I can do this without even mentioning Lew. I’ll say I do voluntary work at Twelve Oaks.” Which she did. “And we’re working together on a program…a new music therapy program which I’m looking at funding. And that I’m interested in extending the equestrian therapy facility.”

This wasn’t even bending the truth. She intended making a very significant donation from Stuart’s estate, once it was finalized, to help with both of those programs as well as funding positions for adolescents from low-income families.

Andy’s frown looked unconvinced. “He’s looking for proof of adultery, Vanessa. He’ll have you investigated.”

“And find out what? That I drive up to Lexford two or three times a week, to a special-needs home where I’m listed as a volunteer?”

“A home with a resident who shares your surname. Any investigator worth his salt is going to make the connection.”

Didn’t he ever tire of being so calm and logical and right? Blast him. Because he was right, and already her mind had leaped ahead to the next correlation a professional investigator—or his eagle-eyed employer—may make.

Lew Kotzur had moved into Twelve Oaks the same month that his sister Vanessa quit her two waitressing jobs to marry Stuart Thorpe. The man who pulled strings to get young Lew into the place. The man behind the trust fund that paid all his bills.

A sick feeling of fatalism settled over her as they stopped beside her car. Even before Andy spoke. “The way I see it, you have two options, Vanessa.”

“I get to choose my poison?”

He didn’t smile at her attempt at levity. His calm, level gaze held hers as he laid those choices on the line. “Either you let Thorpe investigate and risk him spreading nasty stuff about why you keep your brother hidden away from your new society friends. Or you tell him yourself and explain your motivation. There’re your choices, Vanessa. It’s up to you.”

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