Society Wives: Love or Money: The Bought-and-Paid-for Wife

“Is there something I should know about her before I start making social engagements?” He gestured toward the door, indicating she should precede him. Wariness clouded her green eyes and her mouth tightened slightly because, naturally, she’d have liked to walk away. Alone.

Too bad because he intended seeing her to her car.

And getting a response to his question about Delia.

“Is there a reason you’re not close?” he persisted after they’d cleared the tables and were crossing the restaurant foyer. She wasn’t exactly dawdling but he kept up easily, a hand low on her back steering her toward the elevators. “Because I’d have thought you would have plenty in common.”

Halting abruptly, she turned to him. Green sparks flared in her eyes. “Don’t presume too much, Tristan. You’ve never met Delia. And you only think you know me.”

For a moment the inherent challenge in her words was secondary to the impact of her nearness. She’d turned into his ushering arm, so swiftly that the swing of her hair brushed his arm and shoulder. Several strands had caught against his dark jacket, and when he inhaled—a quick flare of his nostrils, a sharp suck of air—he breathed her delicate floral scent and the combination rocked his brain and libido with dizzying temptation.

He knew better than to touch but he did it anyway.

With his free hand he lifted those rogue strands from his jacket and coiled them around his fingers. Her hair was as fine and silky soft as he’d imagined but surprisingly cool, unlike the flush of heat in her throat and the softening of her full lips.

Completely unlike the bolt of energy that crackled in the air as their eyes met and held.

“Is that a challenge?” he asked.

She blinked slowly, as if lost in the moment and the dangerous vibration pulsing between them. “What do you mean?”

“To get to know you better.”

Behind them the elevator announced its arrival. The subtle electronic distraction brought her head up and back, breaking eye contact and forcing him to release her hair. A couple exited the elevator, hand in hand and so absorbed in each other they’d have walked right through him and Vanessa—or a herd of stampeding buffalo—if he hadn’t backed out of the way.

“Not at all,” she responded once they were alone again. “It was a statement of fact. You haven’t met Delia Forrester and yet you presumed a similarity between us.”

“You’re unalike?”

“We are different.” She held his gaze. “Very different.”

He thought she would say more—it was there in her eyes, a darkening of purpose, a fleeting moment of gravity—but then she made a little gesture he interpreted as forget-about-it and started walking.

He caught up with her in two strides.

“I’m going to take the stairs,” she said crisply. Then, when he continued at her side, she cut him a sharp look. “There’s no need for you to accompany me.”

“I’ll see you to your car.”

“I am valet parked. There’s no need.”

He didn’t argue, he just kept walking, not to be difficult or perverse but to see her safely to her car. It was the right thing to do. So was letting go the subject of Delia Forrester—he would find out the differences soon enough.

He would make up his own mind.

While waiting for her car, they made stilted small talk about the hotel and its first-rate service and, when her Mercedes Cabriolet appeared, about the car itself. Then, before she slid into the driver’s seat, came a moment of awkwardness, as she said goodbye in a stiffly formal way.

“Not goodbye.” Tristan dismissed the valet with a look and met her eyes over the sports car’s low door. “I will see you at the polo match. Frank said everyone will be there—I assume that includes you?”

“Please don’t do this,” she said in a rush of entreaty. “Please don’t use this as a venue to ask questions about me.”

“This afternoon you didn’t have any qualms. I recall you wishing me luck.”

“This afternoon you caught me by surprise.”

The surprise of that kiss, of each touch, of their unwanted attraction, arced between them in the tense stillness of the night. Nothing needed to be said; it was all there, in the unspoken moment. As was the root of their conflict, the part that was no surprise. “And now you’re suggesting I shouldn’t ask questions about you?”

“I’m asking that you respect the privacy of others.” She moistened her lips, and the sweet warmth of her kiss licked through his veins again. “You said this was between you and me, but it’s not. You will hurt others, if you go around asking questions and starting rumors and drawing attention to our feud. Think about it, please. Think about doing the right thing.”

Standing so close, Tristan felt the candor of her appeal reach out and take a grip. She’d never asked anything of him before, not so directly, not with a please that chased the memory of her taste and the scent of her hair on a wild scrambling scurry beyond his blood and his male hormones to a closely guarded place beyond.

“I am doing the right thing,” he assured her … and reminded himself. “I’ve never doubted that.”

For a brief instant he thought there was more, a response or another appeal, and deep in his gut he hoped for the latter. A please, Tristan that was only about them and had nothing to do with their conflict. But then she pressed her lips together and just before she slid into the driver’s seat, he glimpsed something else deep in her eyes, something that shifted like a darkening shadow.

Whatever was going on with her, he would find out.

Steel coated his resolve and his voice as he watched the glossy vehicle glide from beneath the hotel portico onto the street. “If you have nothing to hide, duchess, then why that appeal? What do you have to fear? And who the hell are you protecting?”

A block away from the Marabella, Vanessa expelled a soft gust of held back breath. Finally she was able to breathe and think again—two basics she had difficulty with in Tristan’s company. And now she was functioning at something like normality, the tight, sick feeling she’d experienced earlier returned with a vengeance.

Tonight had been a complete waste of time. Had she really thought she could sit at the same table and pretend he hadn’t turned her world on its head with his arrival and his condemnation and his hot-blooded kiss?

“Not a kiss,” she reminded herself vehemently, and a fat lot of good that did! Rolling her shoulders and gripping the steering wheel tightly did not halt the rush of heat, either. Even now, all these hours later, she could still feel the sizzle.

What was that about?

The sad part was, Vanessa didn’t know. She’d never experienced anything like this before. Ever. No boyfriends, no stolen kisses, no illicit make out sessions. Nothing but work and caring for Lew and then a whole new world of opportunity through her friendship with Stuart Thorpe.

“Why him?” She thumped the steering wheel with one fisted hand. “Why did it have to be him?”

Tonight, unfortunately, she’d witnessed an unexpected side to her nemesis. Smiling in the moonlight, challenging her over his kissing technique, charming and at ease with Frank Forrester, showing her to her car like a gentleman.

She growled low in her throat and thumped the wheel again.

And what are you going to do about it, duchess?

Hearing the silent question in his dark chocolate drawl did not help her mood of frustrated disquiet.

“Nothing,” she muttered, but that response hung over her like a dark-shadowed indictment of her failure tonight. She shifted in her seat and reconsidered. Okay. About this unwanted attraction, she would do nothing.

But that wasn’t her real problem …

She still had no proof of the letter’s validity, and he believed he had grounds to steal her security and Lew’s future away from her.

Paused at an intersection, she checked for traffic. Down the street to her left stood the offices of Cartwright and Associates, a place she’d come to know oh so well in the past two years. The place where she should have taken the news of Tristan’s arrival and allegations this afternoon.

As Stuart’s lawyer and now hers, Jack Cartwright was one of the handful of people who knew about Lew, and right now she could do with his clear head and logical approach. She checked the dashboard clock and winced. Although Jack and his wife Lily were close friends, they were expecting their first baby in a month’s time and calling this late felt like an imposition.

Not that she wasn’t tempted … but, no. First thing in the morning she would call and arrange a meeting. The earlier the better.

After sleeping poorly Vanessa was up and dressed before dawn, but she managed to hold off calling the Cartwright home until seven o’clock. Then she kicked herself because Jack had gone into the office already. She exchanged small talk with Lily for all of six seconds before the other woman picked up on the strain in her voice. “Is everything all right, Vanessa?”

“No, not really. Tristan Thorpe’s in town.” Which, really, was the sum total of her problems. “I need to talk to Jack. I’ll call him at the office.”

“I have a better idea. Why don’t you come over here and have breakfast with us?” Lily suggested. “Jack will be home in an hour or so. He went in early to brief an associate on a court appearance because he’s taking the morning off. Doctor’s appointment.”

“Is everything all right?”

Lily chuckled. “As far as I know, but Mr. Protective insists on taking me, every time.”

Vanessa didn’t want to intrude on their morning plans but Lily insisted. And right on eight o’clock she was following her heavily pregnant friend into the kitchen of the Cartwrights’ two-story colonial home. And it was a home, as bright and cheerful and welcoming as the glowing Lily.

Lily was a recent addition to the circle of friends known as the Debs Club and Vanessa had felt an immediate kinship. Possibly because she, too, had grown up in a tough environment unlike the rest of the group who truly were debs. Lily, too, had struggled to fit into this privileged society in the early months of her marriage, but she and Jack had worked things out and now the happiness she deserved showed on her face.

“Jack’s not home yet.” Lily rolled her eyes but with a cheerfulness that said she didn’t mind. Her man would be home soon and that suited her fine. “I called to let him know you were coming over so he shouldn’t be long. Can I get you coffee? Tea? Juice?”

“Oh, please, you don’t have to wait on me. Sit down.”

“And take a weight off?”

“Yes. Exactly.” For the first time she let her eyes rest on the other woman’s belly and she felt an unfamiliar twinge of longing, a reaction she hid behind a smile. “Are you sure that’s not twins in there?”

“Sometimes I swear there are three.” Lily paused in the middle of making a pot of tea. Her expressive blue eyes grew dreamy. “Not that I would mind.”

Of course she wouldn’t. Her down-to-earth honesty combined with her caring nature and a street-smart wisdom had made her a wonderful social worker and would make her an equally wonderful mother.

Lucky kids, Vanessa thought, and the pang in her middle intensified.

“So.” Teapot in hand, Lily waddled across to the table and lowered herself carefully into a chair. “Tell me about Tristan Thorpe.”

For once Vanessa was relieved to bring him into the conversation—anything to stifle this bizarre attack of motherhood envy. She had no idea where that had sprung from, all of a sudden. “He arrived yesterday. He’s staying at the Marabella. He’s even more aggravating face-to-face.”

“You’ve seen him already?” Lily propped her chin in a hand, all eager-eyed curiosity. “Do tell.”

Where should she start? What could she say without giving away the depth of her confusion and conflict? Just saying face-to-face had brought a guilty warmth to her cheeks, mostly because it put her in mind of mouth-to-mouth.

And hadn’t that wild sensual memory kept her company all through the night!

“There’s probably no need for me to tell you anything,” she said, recalling one of the other things that had kept her awake. “You will hear it all on the grapevine soon enough.”

“All?”

“I met with him at the Marabella restaurant last night.”

“You went to dinner with him?” Surprise rounded Lily’s eyes. “Did anyone survive?”

Vanessa pulled a face. “Barely. As luck would have it, Frank Forrester happened along.”

“With Delia?”

“No, but he’ll tell her that he ran into us. You know Delia. She needs to know everything that’s going on.”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

Delia had really stuck her claws into Lily, for no apparent reason other than her friendship with the Debs. That ugliness had exposed a whole new side of Delia Forrester—a side that turned Vanessa ice-cold with anxiety when she thought about—

“Hey, what’s the matter?”

Vanessa blinked, and realized that her worried frown had drawn Lily’s question. She started to wave her friend’s concern aside, then changed her mind. Of all the Debs, Lily would most likely understand.

“I was thinking about how these people—the Delias of this world—can tear a person apart for no reason. A whisper here, a catty comment there, and before you know it everyone is talking and wondering.” She took a breath. “Have you heard any rumors about me?”

“What kind of rumors?”

“Oh, that I’m meeting a man in secret. That I have been for years.”

“Where on earth did this come from?” Lily’s eyes narrowed. “Tristan?”

“He says he got a letter, from someone over here—” she spread her hands to indicate Eastwick, their home “—claiming there is proof.”

Something flickered in Lily’s eyes and she sat up straighter. She opened her mouth, about to speak, but then her focus shifted, distracted by the sound of footsteps. As her husband came into view her expression transformed, growing bright and soft and incandescent with love.

Although Jack greeted Vanessa with an apology for his tardiness, it was a fleeting acknowledgment of her presence. Because then he was smiling at his wife as he leaned over and pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead and touched a gently protective hand to her stomach.

It was nothing and it was everything, a symbol of the intimacy of their small family circle and a reminder of what she, Vanessa, had never experienced and could never contemplate for herself.

Suddenly her throat felt thick with a desperate sense of yearning. It was ridiculous, hopeless, frustrating. She didn’t even want this love, this coupledom, this family deal. She had everything she wanted, everything necessary and important, and there was no room or time or emotional energy left for anything else.

“So, I hear that Tristan Thorpe is in town.” Jack straightened, his expression smoothing into business professional. It seemed that the news had traveled even faster than she’d anticipated. “Is he here to make trouble?”

“He got a letter,” Lily supplied, and her husband went very still. His eyes narrowed on Vanessa. “The same as the others?”

“The … others?” Vanessa repeated stupidly, and in the same instant it struck her what they meant.

Two anonymous extortion letters had been sent several months back, one to Jack and one to Caroline Keating-Spence. She shook her head slowly, kicking herself for not considering this connection.

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen the letter yet.” Her heart beat hard in her chest, a thick pulse of dismay, as she looked from Jack’s still countenance to Lily’s worried frown and back again. As the full ramifications took hold. “Do you really think this could be the same person? That it might be the same man … the one Abby thinks killed Bunny?”

Five

Tristan had a breakfast meeting, too. Not with his lawyer but with the private investigator engaged by his lawyer to look into Vanessa’s alleged adultery. The P.I. turned out to be a retired cop who was punctual, professional and personable.

Tristan dismissed him anyway.

His decision was split-second, gut instinct. Sitting in a Stamford coffee house watching the guy demolish a towering stack of pancakes while he delivered the lowdown on his snooping techniques, he pictured Vanessa’s face when she’d appealed to his sense of fair play. Same as last night, he felt the grip of her emotion as she looked him in the eye and hit him with the reminder that this was between the two of them.

That didn’t mean he’d changed his mind, only his tactics.

Instead of employing a third party to dig into her affairs, he’d take up the shovel himself.

Instead of arranging for the letter to be sent to her lawyer, he collected it and brought it back to Eastwick. His aim: to deliver it personally.

Turning into White Birch Lane, he pulled over to make way for a horse float and the need to brake and control his deceleration alerted him that he’d been driving too fast. Worse, he realized that his haste was geared by a different anticipation from his first visit to her home. Edgy, yes, but colored by memories of her smile and her taste and the spark of a fiery inner passion when she faced up to his hard-line tactics.

Vanessa might look the picture of Nordic cool but he’d seen her gather that poise around herself like a protective cloak. Measured, learned, practiced—whatever, he knew it was fake and he couldn’t help wondering why she felt the need to adopt a facade. He couldn’t help wondering what she was hiding, and a frown pulled hard at his brow.

He’d spent a good portion of the night wondering about her, uncomfortable with how much he wanted to know. It was an alarm and a warning.

Get to know her, yes, but don’t forget why.

After the lumbering trailer disappeared, Tristan continued at a more sedate pace. He allowed himself to glance around, to take in the big homes set back from the road on finely manicured acreages. His frown deepened as he contemplated Frank Forrester’s reference to coming home.

He didn’t feel any more sense of homecoming today than yesterday, not even when he turned into the drive where he’d learned to ride a bicycle, not passing the first tree he’d climbed, not even looking out over the grass where he’d first kicked a football.

All he felt was the same gut-kick of bitterness and the keener edge of anticipation. He had to remind himself, again, of his purpose.

He wasn’t here to see her, to visit with her, to spar with her—he was here to deliver the letter.

That didn’t prevent the crunch of disappointment when the housekeeper—Gloria—opened the door and informed him, with great glee, that Mrs. Thorpe was out and not expected home until late in the afternoon.

Okay. This could still work. In fact, if Gloria didn’t mind talking, this could work out even better.

“I didn’t ever get that tea yesterday.” He smiled and was rewarded with the suspicious narrowing of the woman’s eyes. “Is the invitation still open?”

“I guess I could manage a pot of tea.”

She stepped back and let him precede her into the foyer.

“So,” he said, picking up his shovel and turning the first sod. “Have you worked for Mrs. Thorpe a long time?”

After visiting with Gloria, Tristan returned to his hotel to catch up on some business. He’d sold his share in Telfour very recently and was still fielding calls and e-mails daily. Then there was his position on two company boards plus an enticing offer to join a business start-up, which had influenced his decision to sell.

He was still considering that direction and monitoring a couple of other options.

The busyness suited him fine. He didn’t know how to do nothing and immersing himself in his normal business world served as the perfect touchstone with reality. He’d needed that after the last twenty-four hours.

Thus immersed, he picked up the buzzing phone expecting to hear his assistant’s voice, only to be disappointed.

Delia Forrester hadn’t waited for him to call. He didn’t much care for the woman’s overly familiar manner but he accepted her invitation to join their party at Sunday’s polo match, regardless.

After the call, his concentration was shot so he headed to the hotel’s pool. His natural inclination was to swim hard, to burn off the excess energy in his limbs and his blood and his hormones. But after a couple of hard laps he forced himself to ease off to a lazy crawl. He refused to cede control to a situation and a woman and an untenable attraction.

Up and down the pool he loped, distracting himself by thinking about last night’s encounter with Frank Forrester, conjuring up vague memories of him and his first wife—Lyn? Linda? Lydia?—spending weekends out of the city at the Thorpe home.

And now, for all the brightness of his conversation, Frank looked worn out. Had his father aged as badly? Had he grown frail and stooped?

Worn out from keeping up with a young, fast, social-climbing wife when he should have been taking it easy with his life’s companion, enjoying the rewards he’d earned through decades of hard work?

Without realizing it, Tristan had upped his tempo to a solid churning pace, driven by those thoughts and by the effort of not thinking about his father with Vanessa.

Too young, too alive, too passionate.

All wrong.

He forced himself to stop churning—physically and mentally—at the end of the lap. Rolling onto his back, he kicked away from the edge and there she was, standing at the end of the pool, as if conjured straight out of his reflections.

Or possibly not, he decided on a longer second glance.

Dressed in a pale blue suit, with her hair pulled back and pinned up out of view, her eyes and half her face hidden behind a pair of large sunglasses, she looked older, stiffer, all polish and composure and money.

She didn’t look happy, either, but then he’d expected as much when he decided not to leave the letter with Gloria.

He knew he’d hear about it—and that she’d possibly come gunning for him—but he hadn’t expected her this early in the day. Not when he’d been told she had a full day of important charity committee meetings.

Despite all that, he felt the same adrenaline spike as last night in the restaurant and this morning walking up to her door. The same, only with an added rush of heat, which didn’t thrill him. To compose himself, he swam another lap and back, forcing himself to turn his arms over—slow and unconcerned.

Then he climbed from the pool in a long, lazy motion and collected his towel from a nearby lounger. All the while, he felt her watching him and his body’s unwelcome response undid all the good work of those relaxing last laps.

Thank God for jumbo-size hotel towels.

Walking back to where she stood, Tristan subjected her to the same thorough once-over. Payback, he justified. She didn’t move a muscle, even when he came to a halt much too close, and he wondered if her shoes—very proper, with heels and all to match the suit—had melted into the poolside tile.

“A little overdressed for a dip, aren’t you?”

A small furrow between her brows deepened. She moistened her lips, as if perhaps her mouth had all dried out. “I didn’t come here to swim.”

“Pity. It’s the weather for it.”

“Yes, it’s hot but—”

“You want to get out of the sun?” Tristan inclined his head toward the nearest setting with a big shady umbrella. What a difference a day makes. Twenty-four hours ago he’d been in the business suit, knocking at her door. Now she was on his turf and he aimed to milk the reversal in power for all it was worth.

“No.” She shook her head. “I only came for the letter. Gloria rang to tell me you’d called around but you wouldn’t leave it.”

“I didn’t know if I should.”

She made an annoyed sound with her tongue and teeth.

“Last night you specifically asked that we keep this between you and me,” he reasoned.

“Which is why you insinuated yourself into my house and interrogated my housekeeper?”