The Wrong Wife

His memory, or lack of it, didn’t excuse him. But as far as he could see, his new bride lacked even the feeble excuse of drunkenness for what she had done to him. Cassie had known he was drunk. She’d known what kind of woman he needed—hadn’t he told her and Ryan both, while drinking toasts to the wedding that didn’t happen? Yet she’d married him anyway.

He scowled at her.

Cassie marched to the window where he stood and seized the drapery pull. “I hope breakfast gets here soon, Gideon. Your blood sugar must be low. It’s interfering with your reason. Of course we’ll get the marriage annulled.” She yanked on the cord, flooding the room with hideously bright light that the white sheers did nothing to tame. “There, that’s better. Mornings in the desert are beautiful, aren’t they?”

Gideon winced at the assault on his abused eyeballs. The sunshine lit a fire in Cassie’s hair, a fire that should have clashed with the tomato-red silk of the blouse she wore tucked into her jeans but didn’t. Vivid colors suited Cassie as pastels never would.

Melissa, Gideon thought, his scowl deepening, would never wear a shirt that bright. Melissa preferred soft blues and peaches that didn’t overwhelm her delicate blond coloring. She wouldn’t have opened those drapes without asking, either. He was sure of it. “There’s nothing wrong with my reason. Yours, however—” Patience, he reminded himself, was necessary to maintaining control. “Cassie, you must know an annulment isn’t possible after the marriage has been consummated.”

“So?” She propped her hands on her hips in a familiar, challenging pose.

“Obviously, after last night—”

“I thought you didn’t remember last night.”

The shock of fear over his loss—of memory, of control—was less than it had been. Less, but still powerful. “I don’t,” he said, his voice flat with the effort of detachment. “But when I wake up naked, in bed with a woman who is also naked, I don’t need an instant replay to tell me what happened the night before.”

“Well,” she said, “I hate to tell you this, but you had an awful lot to drink yesterday, Gideon. You’re not used to that. You mustn’t be upset that your, ah, manly functions were impaired.”

“My what?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Are you saying that I didn’t—that I passed out?”

“Not exactly. You tried. It isn’t as if you didn’t try. You just couldn’t.” She stepped closer and patted his arm. The gold band on her finger winked at him mockingly in the sunshine. “It’s okay, though. Really.”

He stepped back and glared.

She smiled sweetly at him. “Don’t worry. I’m sure there’s no permanent problem. And an annulment is much tidier than a divorce, don’t you think?”

The knock at the door pleased Gideon. Thinking of coffee and a clean shirt, tabling consideration of Cassie’s bombshell, he strode to the door and opened it without hesitating.

The man on the other side of the door was very like Gideon, and very different. The expressions the two men faced each other with were identically grim, but the newcomer’s scowling mouth was framed by a thick mustache. He was every bit as tall as Gideon, and even heavier through the chest and shoulders. Where Gideon’s hair was the limitless black of midnight, this man’s hair flamed with sunrise.

Just like Cassie’s.

“I want to talk to my sister,” the other man growled. “Now.”

Gideon sighed. Of course Ryan showed up before Gideon’s coffee and clean shirt did, and of course he was breathing fire. On a morning like this, what else could he expect? Gideon stepped back, silently holding the door open for the one man he considered a friend—or had. Until this morning.

Ryan charged into the room. “Cassie,” he said as he reached for her. “Cassie—”

She held an arm out stiffly, as if that slender limb could really hold off her oversize brother, and announced, “I am going to kill you this time.”

Ignoring her arm and her statement equally, he grabbed her shoulders, peering into her face. “Are you all right?”

She rolled her eyes. “No, I’ve been ravished too many times to count. Quit playing—”

The growl rumbling up from Ryan’s chest didn’t sound playful. Gideon went from standby to full alert.

Cassie grabbed her brother’s arm and hung on as he turned to face Gideon. “I am not going to have this, do you hear me? You are not going to pound on Gideon. Yesterday you did everything but offer him some cows and ponies if he’d take me off your hands, and now you come barging in here as if he’d abducted me! What in the world is wrong with you—other than the usual, I mean?”

Ryan didn’t bother to look sheepish. “Yesterday I’d had too much to drink. That doesn’t—”

“Doesn’t excuse you in any way, form or fashion! What I want to know is—” Cassie broke off to stare at Gideon. “Would you mind?” she asked irritably. “I’d like to talk to Ryan privately for a minute.”

He could, he thought, take offense at having his bride of nine hours ask him to go away and let her talk with her brother privately. He could have been amused. He’d often been amused in the past by the way the pair of O’Gradys interacted with each other—alternately quarrelsome and affectionate, full of dire threats and a fierce, unshakable loyalty.

Today he simply felt the chill and the distance. He’d never known how to belong like that. “You know,” he said, surprising himself, “I think I do mind.”

The knock that landed on the still-open door was a welcome interruption. Room service had arrived at last.

Two

Brother and sister argued in vehement whispers while the waiter set out a variety of breakfast dishes. Gideon didn’t go to the bathroom for the shower and clean clothes he badly needed. For some reason he simply did not want to leave the room.

He watched as Ryan helped himself to a cup of coffee and Cassie picked up one of the croissants and tore the end off, neither of them bothering to sit down. He could hear snippets of their argument as he signed the tab and tipped the waiter, enough to know that, as angry as Cassie was with him, she was still trying to persuade Ryan he shouldn’t blame Gideon for yesterday’s events.

Gideon couldn’t remember anyone ever defending him. His response was swift and physical. The sting of desire was sharp enough to burn, strong enough to disorient him.

He wanted Cassie. Badly. He was still angry over all he’d lost by marrying the wrong woman, angry with her as well as himself. He still felt betrayed in a private corner of his soul no one had ever managed to disturb before. But he wanted her with bewildering intensity.

He watched her argue with her brother. Cassie put her whole body behind everything she said, everything she did. Like a candle flame, he thought—always in motion. She wasn’t beautiful the way Melissa was. She was short and slight and...fascinating. The sleeves of her silk blouse were rolled up, and the pale flesh of her arms gesturing fluidly enticed him as if she’d bared her breasts. He felt ridiculous. And aroused.

Maybe he didn’t consciously remember what had happened between them last night, but his body remembered. If, as she’d said, he hadn’t been able to finish what he started, then he might want her all the more today because of what he hadn’t done last night.

If he could have her even once, he thought, the hunger wouldn’t be so keen, so consuming. He could regain control.

He watched as Cassie grabbed the butter knife. She paused in her vehement discussion long enough to spread a precise amount of pale, creamy butter on the end of the croissant. She was such an odd little creature. In some ways she subsisted on impulse and emotion as purely as fire lives off the oxygen it bums, yet in others she was as neat and orderly as the facets of a crystal—a small, tidy agent of chaos.

He had never pretended to understand her. He watched her now, but he was remembering a skinny girl with messy braids and eldritch eyes.

Gideon had gone home with his new roommate for a rare weekend off. Not that he’d planned to. At eighteen, Gideon hadn’t thought he had time for friendships, not with his heavy course load and the part-time job his aunt considered an essential part of his college experience. Being the sort of woman she was, Aunt Eleanor had made the job necessary in fact as well as theory. She’d paid for his tuition and books. Everything else was up to him. If Gideon didn’t work, he didn’t eat.

But Ryan O’Grady, for all that he seemed like a cheerful Irish grizzly, was almost as ambitious, every bit as stubborn, and twice as poor as Gideon was. Eventually Gideon had given in and accepted Ryan’s invitation home. By the time the two of them had walked up the short path to the run-down mobile home in a south Dallas trailer park, though, Gideon was regretting having agreed to the weekend.

Not that the poverty bothered him. He’d lived in places a good deal worse before his aunt took him in, places where no one bothered to trim the grass or set out pots of grocery store mums to brighten a tiny front porch like someone had done here. No, he hadn’t wanted to be there because he didn’t know how to act around a regular family.

“Ryan!” a lilting voice had called out from somewhere above their heads. “I’m so glad you’re here! I have to warn you, though.” The voice had dropped confidentially. “Mom has been cooking all morning.”

Gideon had looked up, right into a mermaid’s eyes. A very dirty, landlocked little mermaid, with an elf’s pointed face, skinned knees, and braids half undone, sat on the roof of that rundown mobile home, her bare feet dangling, and watched them solemnly.

“Is that bad?” he’d been startled into asking.

She’d nodded. “You have to eat it, you see.” She looked him up and down, and her eyes brightened. “You look like you could eat a lot.”

“He does,” Ryan had said, laughing and lifting his arms. “Eats like a horse. Mom will love him. Come down from there, brat, you’re confusing our guest.”

Quick as that, she’d drawn her legs up, held her own skinny arms out, and leaned out into thin air, falling right into her brother’s arms. Gideon had never forgotten the look on her face as she fell. Trust. Utter, joyous trust.

No, Gideon didn’t understand Cassie. Not the little girl he remembered, or the young woman who stood across the room from him now in a gold and white Las Vegas suite, scattering crumbs on the thick carpet while she argued with her brother. But he did understand responsibility.

“Ryan,” he said, deciding it was time they settled things. “You didn’t come to my room to argue with Cassie.”

The other man looked over at him. “No,” he agreed slowly. “I came here to see if you needed your bones broken.”

Cassie made an impatient noise that the two men ignored. “You thought I would hurt her?” Gideon asked.

“You were drunk.” Ryan said bluntly. “So was I, or I wouldn’t have let her go with you when you were in that shape.”

Gideon nodded, accepting that. “Well?”

Ryan faced him. “She says you didn’t hurt her. So the next question is, what do you plan on doing now?”

Gideon was silent. What was he going to do? Until Cassie had come out of the shower and announced her desire for an annulment, his course had seemed clear. He’d made promises. Never mind that he’d been drunk at the time. If anything, that made it even more important that he take responsibility for his actions—financial responsibility, at least. Money was the basis for this marriage, after all, however Cassie might try to deny it now.

Then Cassie had said she wanted an annulment. He couldn’t let that happen. Gideon didn’t know why it was so important, but he simply could not let her erase their marriage as if it had never happened.

After all, dammit, he wanted her. He ached, and the intensity of that ache unsettled him. He realized that one time with her would be not be enough. And didn’t Cassie owe him something, too? “I promised her my support,” he said slowly, forcing himself to think beyond the throbbing in his loins and the confusion in his mind. A piece of yesterday’s jigsaw puzzle floated to the surface. “That was our deal, that I’d support her if she would marry me,” he said, remembering. “She wants to paint.”

“She needs to paint,” Ryan corrected. “Not just because of the gallery owner who’s interested in the direction she’s taken with her work lately. That’s important to her career, sure, but painting means more to Cassie than a career.”

Cassie frowned and muttered something to her brother. Gideon didn’t listen.

He understood what Ryan meant when he said Cassie needed to paint. Painting meant more to her than anything, including the husband she’d acquired in order to pursue her painting. He just hadn’t thought Cassie could use people that way. He hadn’t thought she could use him that way.

Yes, he decided, she did owe him. Chances were, though, her brother wouldn’t care for the type of repayment Gideon had in mind. Gideon didn’t want to lose Ryan’s friendship. He had to set this up carefully. “What I decide has to be up to Cassie to some extent. I’m willing to settle funds on her.”

“Marriage involves a hell of a lot more than a checkbook. If you’re not—”

“He said it was up to me,” Cassie interrupted.

She might as well have not spoken. “What I want to know,” Ryan said to Gideon, “is whether you intend to dump my little sister or not. I had my reasons for encouraging this marriage—”

Cassie squawked and grabbed her brother’s arm.

“—but that’s because I trusted you to take care of her. I’m riot talking about money here, Gideon.”

Ryan knew better, Gideon thought with a hot flick of resentment. At least Ryan ought to know how little Gideon had to offer a woman, other than money. The man had no business insisting on that damned ambiguous “more.” But he was insisting. And he was Gideon’s best friend, maybe his only real friend. Gideon made up his mind suddenly.

Ryan wouldn’t like it at all if he knew just what Gideon intended to give Cassie, other than financial support. Gideon didn’t plan on enlightening him. “You’re right. We should give this marriage a try, at least for a time.”

“For a time?” Ryan’s eyes narrowed. “Just what does that mean?”

“Yeah,” Cassie said, an identical expression on her narrower, more feminine face. “What does that mean?”

“Six months.”

Cassie threw up her hands. “You’re crazy.”

“A year,” Ryan said. “Anything less than a year would strike me as insincere.”

“All right.” Gideon nodded. They wouldn’t have to live together the entire time, after all. “At the end of the year, if we’re not both convinced the marriage is working out, I can still settle some funds on her.”

“Have either of you noticed that I’m fight here in the room with you?” Cassie demanded. “Do you two really think I’m going to let you settle my future as if I were a property Gideon didn’t want to buy, but is considering leasing? Come on, Ryan, you’re supposed to be so hot at real estate. Can’t you bargain Gideon up to a two-year lease? And shouldn’t we talk about who’s responsible for necessary maintenance and repairs? Like dental work. And health insurance. Usually the owner carries structural insurance—I guess that would translate as major medical—-white the leaser is responsible for—”

“Come here,” Ryan said, and grabbed Cassie’s arm. He pulled her, protesting, over by the window, where the two of them carried on another discussion, this time mostly in whispers. But Gideon had excellent hearing. He caught a few stray words, enough to realize that Ryan knew something about Cassie that she wanted kept secret.

Gideon’s disillusionment deepened. What could that mean, except that Cassie did, indeed, want his money, and didn’t want him to know? Gideon didn’t blame Ryan. He’d known, even yesterday when he was drunk, that Ryan was doing his damnedest to manipulate the two of them into this marriage. But Ryan only wanted what was best for his sister. That was how it should be. Brothers, especially older brothers, should look out for their younger sisters...or brothers.

Gideon felt an old, old ache.

Cassie kept darting wary glances at Gideon. Finally she nodded.

“Good,” Ryan said, looking relieved. “It’s settled, then.” He glanced around, noticed the table full of breakfast dishes, and his face lit up. “I haven’t eaten yet.” He reached for one of the chairs next to the table.

Cassie pushed his hand off the chair. “Nothing is settled, and you’re not staying.”

“There’s plenty of food,” Ryan pointed out.

“I’ll take it from here. Goodbye, brother.” She pushed on his chest. He laughed.

Their tussle was brief. Cassie won it handily in spite of her size, but that had more to do with whatever she hissed in his ear than with brute strength. Ryan sent a last, longing glance at the table of food before he gave up and went to the door, saying he’d see them both back in Dallas. “I’ll even call Mom for you,” he told Cassie with a grin. “Let her know what you’ve been up to.”

As soon as the door closed behind Ryan, Gideon expected Cassie to launch into whatever harangue she’d been saving up for him. Instead, she stood there next to the door, looking uncertain—an experience that must have been as disconcerting for her as it was for him. Cassie had never been awkward around him before.

It was her own fault if she felt awkward now, he told himself. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s eat before we try to settle anything else.”

They sat opposite each other at the white-draped table. Silence stretched out between them for another minute while Gideon pretended to want the eggs he methodically ate. Cassie spent the whole minute buttering a croissant and not looking at him. Sunshine gleamed off the ornate handle of the butter knife, and off the smooth simplicity of her bright hair. “Gideon,” she said at last, setting down the mangled croissant and meeting his eyes. “Gideon, listen to me. I did not marry you because I want, or need, your money.”

“Don’t.” Anger roiled in his stomach, and he set down his fork. “Dammit, Cassie, I know how you grew up, how little money there was and how hard your mother worked to keep a roof over your heads. I can understand you wanting more. God knows I understand that. And you’ve always been impulsive, so maybe the big surprise is that you’ve never run off to Vegas before now. Just don’t pretend. Dammit, don’t pretend!”

Her mouth turned down. “Oh, Gideon. Do you really think so little of women, or yourself? Do you think the only reason a woman would marry you is for your money?”

Her misunderstanding bothered him. He stood. “I’m not down on women, Cassie. The way I see it, men and women are both programmed by our biologies, but the operating systems aren’t the same. For a woman, a successful mating is one that provides her and her children with a strong provider. In today’s world that translates into money. That isn’t wrong, it’s just nature at work.”

“A ‘successful mating,”’ she repeated slowly, taking the napkin from her lap and laying it on the table. “And just what constitutes a ‘successful mating’ in terms of a man’s biology?”

He frowned. He didn’t seem to be getting his point across. Her expression made him think of a pot about to boil. “Evolution has geared men toward multiple sexual partners, since that spreads a man’s seed—”

She shoved back from the table so hard it wobbled, spilling coffee from Gideon’s cup onto the white cloth. “I guess that means last night was thoroughly unsuccessful for both our biologies, then, wasn’t it? That,” she flung at him as she started to pace, “is the most disgusting theory I’ve ever heard. Of all the self-serving justifications for infidelity, that just about tops the list.”

His eyes followed her as she paced. He’d always thought leprechauns would move the way Cassie did—quick, supple, efficient. “Calm down. I’m not promoting infidelity. Animals are victims of their biology. People aren’t. A man who lacks the willpower to keep his word isn’t much of a man. After all, men require fidelity from their wives so we’ll know whose children we’re raising. We have to be prepared to reciprocato.”

She paused in front of the window. The hard, white light admitted by the gauzy sheers surrounded her like an edgy aura. “Oh, you do, huh?”

He nodded. “It’s only fair. A woman wants to know her man comes only to her for sex, because sex is a powerful tool for keeping a male contented. A contented male is more likely to provide well for his family. Women—”

She screeched in rage.

“—are notoriously emotional about this sort of thing,” he finished, eyeing her cautiously. “But it is really quite logical.”

“I am not emotional.” She glared at him, her hands fisted at her sides. “I am reasonable. Calm. Logical. And I’m going to very reasonably explain to you why all your stupid logic is a pile of horse manure.”

The smile that broke over his face surprised them both. “I won’t be bored,” he murmured, mostly to himself. “Whatever else can be said about this marriage we’ve gotten ourselves into for the next year, it won’t be boring.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “We are not staying married.”

Oh, she was an O’Grady, all right. Stubborn to the core. But he knew her weakness. “Not indefinitely,” he agreed. “But I’ve no intention of destroying my friendship with Ryan by kicking his little sister out the day after the wedding. Even if that is what you want.”

“Ryan wouldn’t...” She drifted off uncertainly.

“You know him better than that. Ryan’s as good a friend as a man can have, but his first loyalty is to his family, not to me. How do you think. he’ll react if he thinks I’ve treated you badly?” He started toward her. “It’s not as if I’d blame him, either. I do remember parts of yesterday afternoon and evening, Cassie. I know what you expect from our bargain. You’ve had to spend too much of your time in dead-end jobs instead of painting.” He stopped in front of her. “I told you I’d give you everything you wanted if you would marry me. I’m not a man to go back on my word.”

Gideon studied the stubborn set of her jaw and decided he didn’t mind her obstinacy. He’d never objected to a challenge. “I’ve no intention of letting you go back on your word, either.” He moved closer.

She didn’t back away, but she wanted to. He could tell by the nervous way her tongue flicked over her lips. “Stop smiling like that,” she ordered.

“Like what?”

“Like a cat waiting. outside a mouse hole.”

His smile broadened. “As I recall, you always liked cats.”

“What does that have to do with—” Her breath caught audibly when he moved even closer.

Too close. Gideon stopped with a bare inch between their bodies. If he’d thought to dominate her, to intimidate her with the sheer force of his size, into his way of thinking, that thought fled at the feeling he saw flash across her face.

Desire. Innocent, but not simple, tangled up as it was in the shifting colors of those changeable eyes as she looked up at him, defiant, wary—and obviously unaware of what she’d just given away. And if Cassie’s breath had caught with sudden, unwelcome arousal at his nearness, Gideon lost his breath altogether.

She wants me. Cassie wants me.

His world shifted with that realization. Desire turned to need, to an aching imperative. He understood for the first time how a woman could drive a man to his knees...because Cassie, fey little Cassie with the fiery hair, was a woman. Not a girl. She was twenty-eight, not sixteen as she had been the first time he’d felt this way, not off limits, not forever inaccessible... oh, no, not inaccessible at all, judging by the look in her eyes.

The predator in Gideon roared to the surface of his brain while heat exploded in his body from the groin outward. Mine, he thought, already hard, impossibly ready. He reached out.

Reason didn’t rise and reassert itself. The flicker of uncertainty in her eyes didn’t keep him from grabbing roughly at what he wanted. Fear did.

His, not hers.

The fear didn’t even have to wholly surface to send shock waves through him. Like a leviathan at the bottom of a lake it stirred, and Gideon’s hand faltered just as he touched the place where the silk of her sleeve ended and the silky flesh of her arm began. I almost lost control, he thought. With the conscious thought came a dim amazement as the fear settled back into the murk.