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

Irritation flared in her eyes but before she could respond, Josef arrived with her coffee. She smiled up at the young waiter, her annoyance instantly concealed by an expression as warm and friendly as when she’d opened the door that afternoon. Then Tristan cleared his throat and the subtle reminder of his presence wiped all the warmth from her face. Exactly the same as when she’d found him on her doorstep.

“I am here,” she said tightly, “to see this letter. If it exists.”

“Oh, it exists, duchess. Same as your lover.” Turning the wineglass with his fingers, he waited a second before continuing. “A little young, isn’t he?”

A frown marred the smooth perfection of her face. “Josef?”

“Lover boy. At Old Poynton.”

“How do you …” Her voice trailed off and her eyes widened as the inference took hold. “You followed me this afternoon?”

“Inadvertently.”

“You accidentally followed me? For fifty miles?”

One shoulder lifted in a negligent shrug. “I took a wrong turn. You sped by. I thought it might be interesting to find out who you needed to see in such a godfire hurry.”

Vanessa stared across at him with a growing sense of horror and violation. Not the chill shivers of earlier, when she’d thought about being spied on, but a hot wave of outrage. Because he’d done this. Not some anonymous stranger, but this man. Sitting beside her and passing this off as if it were a big fat nothing.

For a long second she had to fight the urge to hurl something at him. The closest something was her cinnamon mocha macchiato, untouched and still hot enough to do serious damage. The need steamed through her, curling her fingers so tightly around the coffee cup’s handle, she was afraid it might crack under the pressure.

Not good, Vanessa. Not cool. Not restrained. Not gracious.

Not any of the things she loved about this lifestyle she’d adopted.

Through sheer force of willpower she loosened her grip, but she couldn’t risk speaking for fear of the words she might hurl in lieu of the physical. She couldn’t even look at him, in case that fired her rage anew. To remind herself of the very public venue and her very elegant surroundings and the very real need to gather some restraint, she looked past his shoulder at the restaurant and the other diners.

Even on a Tuesday night the Marabella’s celebrated restaurant was close to capacity, the crowd an even mix of well-heeled tourists and business suits and elegantly dressed locals. Many she recognized; several she knew well enough to call friends. Frank Forrester, one of Stuart’s old golfing buddies, tipped his silver head and winked broadly when he caught her eye.

Smiling back, she breathed a silent sigh of relief that Frank’s company didn’t include his wife. The last thing she needed was Delia Forrester sauntering over to flutter eyelashes and flaunt her latest chest augmentation at the new man in town. And if Delia were present, she would notice Tristan. She would saunter and flutter and flaunt because that’s what Delia did in the presence of men, despite the husband she gave every appearance of doting on.

“What’s the matter, duchess? Afraid you’ll be seen with me?”

Tristan’s soft drawl cut through her reflection, drawing her attention back to him. When her gaze collided with his—sharp, steady, the rich ocean blue darkened like night on the water—she experienced a brief pulse of disorientation, almost like vertigo.

“Not at all,” she replied crisply, shaking off that weird sensation. What was the matter with her? Why did she let him get to her so easily, in so many ways? “We are here to discuss business, the same as these gentlemen—” she spread her hands, indicating the sprinkling of suits around them “—and the real estate reps over by the door.”

When his gaze followed hers, taking in the company, Vanessa’s heart gave a tiny bump of discovery.

She’d hit upon the ideal segue back to Andy and this afternoon’s meeting and the ridiculous misconception about an affair. “I don’t mind being seen with you, Tristan,” she said in a smooth, even voice, while her insides tightened and twisted over where this conversation might lead. “It’s no different from two people meeting, say, at the shore, to talk business.”

“Your meeting this afternoon was business?”

Lifting her chin, she met his sardonic gaze. “I do voluntary work at a facility for the developmentally disabled up near Lexford. Andy works there as a counselor.”

“And you meet him, about your volunteering, at the shore? After hours?”

“Not usually.” She moistened her lips. Chose the next words with careful precision. “Andy isn’t only a work associate, you see. We grew up in the same neighborhood, went to the same school. He’s a good friend and we do meet after hours, sometimes, and not always to talk about my volunteering. Given his profession, Andy is a good listener.”

“And today—this afternoon—you needed to talk.”

“To vent,” she corrected.

“About me.”

“Who else?”

He didn’t counter for a tick, and there was something in his expression that started a drumbeat of tension in her blood, a beat that slowed and thickened when his gaze dropped to her lips. “Did you tell him about our kiss?”

The intimacy of his words washed through her, at first warm and strong with remembered sensations and then all wrong. Our kiss denoted sharing. A lovers’ kiss, hushed with reverence and sweet with romance, not imbued with bitter disdain and the bite of angry words.

She shook her head. “That wasn’t a kiss.”

“No?”

“It was a power play, and you know it.”

A note of surprise flickered in the darkened depths of his eyes. “Was it really so bad?”

“As far as kisses go, it fell a long way short of good.”

He rocked back in his chair, his expression trickily hard to gauge. Then he shocked the devil out of her by laughing—a low, lazy chuckle that stayed on his lips and tingled through her body like the sparks of a slow-burning fuse.

“Here’s where I should say, I can do better.”

“To which I would reply, you won’t ever get that second chance.”

Treacherous territory, Ms. Pragmatist warned her. She’d challenged him before. In the keeping room today, for example, and even before today’s first face-to-face confrontation they’d employed words to cut and thrust, in terse e-mails and messages delivered via their respective attorneys.

But this verbal sparring held a different edge.

This came in the shadow of laughter, with a lazy smile and a dangerous shot of pleasure because Vanessa sensed that, finally, she had managed to surprise him in a positive way. That shouldn’t have pleased her quite so much. She should have felt repelled by the prospect of another kiss, a real kiss, with no agenda other than exploring—

No. She jolted upright, appalled that she’d been staring at his lips. That she’d allowed the marine-scented air and the witchery of a full moon to lure her from her evening’s task.

No more, Ms. Pragmatist admonished. Get to the point and get out of here.

“Andy is not my lover. He never was. He never will be.” She laid it on the line in a resolute rush. “If he is named in that letter, I think it’s only fair that he should know.”

“There are no names.”

“Can I see?”

“Now?” He showed his hands, palms up, empty. “Not possible. It’s in my lawyer’s hands.”

“You didn’t waste any time.”

“You had your chance this afternoon, when I came to your house. It was you who suggested we deal through our lawyers.”