“Be My Bride. Live With Me. Let Me...Take Care Of You.” Letter to Reader Title Page About the Author Dedication Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Epilogue Copyright

“Be My Bride. Live With Me. Let Me...Take Care Of You.”

“You just don’t want to admit you made a mistake,” Cassie said, her voice husky. “You think because you’re married, however...accidental that marriage was, you should stay married. Stubborn.”

“Consistent,” Gideon corrected.

“But you don’t want to be married to me.”

“Don’t I?” When his fingertips made a little circle on her arm, his knuckles grazed the side of her breast.

Oh my. “Gideon? I have to know what you want from this marriage.” Sex? she thought wildly. Was sex enough to begin a marriage with? Could she accept it if that was an he wanted from her?

Could she refuse?

Dear Reader,

A sexy fire fighter, a crazy cat and a dynamite heroine—that’s what you’ll find in Lucy and the Loner, Elizabeth Bevarly’s wonderful MAN OF THE MONTH. It’s the next in her installment of THE FAMILY McCORMICK series, and it’s also a MAN OF THE MONTH book you’ll never forget—warm, humorous and very sexy!

A story from Lass Small is always a delight, and Chancy’s Cowboy is Lass at her most marvelous. Don’t miss out as Chancy decides to take some lessons in love from a handsome hunk of a cowboy!

Eileen Wilks’s latest, The Wrong Wife, is chock-full with the sizzling tension and compelling reading that you’ve come to expect from this rising Desire star. And so many of you know and love Barbara McCauley that she needs no introduction, but this month’s The Nanny and the Reluctant Rancher is sure to both please her current fans...and win her new readers!

Suzannah Davis is another new author that we’re excited about, and Dr. Holt and the Texan may just be her best book to date! And the month is completed with a delightful romp from Susan Carroll, Parker and the Gypsy.

There’s something for everyone. So come and relish the romantic variety you’ve come to expect from Silhouette Desire!

Lucia Macro

And the Editors at Silhouette Desire

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service .

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609. Fort Brie, Ont. L2A 5X3

The Wrong Wife

Eileen Wilks

www.millsandboon.co.uk

EILEEN WILKS

is a fifth-generation Texan. Her great-great-grandmother came to Texas in a covered wagon shortly after the end of the Civil War—excuse us, the War Between the States. But she’s not a full-blooded Texan. Right after another war, her Texan father fell for a Yankee woman. This obviously mismatched pair proceeded to travel to nine cities in three countries in the first twenty years of their marriage, raising two kids and innumerable dogs and cats along the way. For the next twenty years they stayed put, back home in Texas again—and still together.

Eileen figures her professional career matches her nomadic upbringing, since she tried everything from drafting to a brief stint as a ranch hand—raising two children and any number of cats and dogs along the way. Not until she started writing did she “stay put,” because that’s when she knew she’d come home.

This one is for my mother,

wherever she is on her journey

One

There was a head on the pillow next to hers.

Cassandra O’Grady blinked sleepily at the back of a man’s head so close to her own. She wasn’t alarmed by the sight. Cassie never felt much of anything except reluctance when a new day first forced itself on her. If she’d been capable of thinking yet, though, she might have been amazed at how little she grudged opening her eyes this morning.

She knew that head. But whose leg was cuddled so cozily between hers?

That question had an important ring to it. Cassie’s three functioning brain cells—the ones left on, like a night-light, to lead her back to wakefulness—stirred with feeble interest. She blinked and managed to frown.

It was a nice head. Not too round or square or oblong. Just right. The hair covering it in back, her present viewing angle, was nice, too—soft and thick. In the early-morning light, with the rest of the world’s colors just starting to wake, that hair held on to the darkness of midnight. Cassie’s frown softened into a smile.

Morning, afternoon or night, Gideon’s hair was beautiful.

Gideon?

Cassie actually felt her heart start. It made a sudden jump and then began to thump so obviously against the wall of her chest, that she understood that the ignition had just been turned on and the accelerator pressed.

Gideon. Gideon Wilde. That was Gideon’s head lying on a pillow eight inches from her own.

Oh, yes, she knew the shape of his head, the darkness of his hair and the way his short, no-nonsense haircut left the nape of his neck bare. And those were his wide shoulders flowing into the strong lines of his back, lines she’d sketched only from memory because she couldn’t let him know his body fascinated her. That was Gideon’s back, because Gideon was lying on his stomach beside her in this large, strange bed, stretched out like the big cat she’d often thought he resembled. And though her line of sight didn’t go any farther, like beneath the sheet, logic suggested that the leg pressed so intimately between hers belonged to Gideon, too. Gideon’s strong, hairy, muscular thigh pressed right up against—

Embarrassment was one type of heat that flooded Cassie as she realized what she wasn’t wearing. The same thing he wasn’t wearing. Memory rushed in, along with another sort of heat—memories of yesterday...and last night.

She remembered taking Gideon’s phone call yesterday at her brother’s office. She’d gone with Ryan to meet Gideon at the Blue Parrot Lounge. She remembered the hours at the Blue Parrot and the trip to the airport, followed by the garish lights of the Las Vegas strip...and last night. Oh, yes, she did remember last night.

Beyond the masculine shoulders that partially blocked her view, Cassie could see the pale, gilded colors of the luxury suite, colors that made her think of Cinderella’s coach. At the foot of the bed was a Disney version of a pirate’s foot locker, painted a soft, dreamy color. Titanium white, she thought, with just enough Hansa yellow to turn milk to cream. Her bouquet rested there. The orchids were a richer cream than the chest they lay upon, and the roses were a paler blush than the color that swept over her as she remembered.

Oh, yes, this was a morning like none before in her life. Cassie smiled, aching with happiness, and started to cuddle closer to the big man in bed with her.

Her movement made him stir. A deep, low, dying sort of groan rumbled up from his chest. He rolled away from her, onto his back, throwing out a heavy arm that glanced off Cassie’s chin.

“Ow!”

His eyes jerked open. They immediately squeezed closed again. He made a soft, piteous sound.

She knew Gideon had put away a lot of alcohol yesterday, both before he called her brother and later. She knew Gideon seldom drank more than a single highball and that he probably felt lousy. But he still ought to be more careful what he did with his arms. Cassie frowned, rubbed her chin and scooted back another couple inches.

His eyes opened again. Slowly his head turned on the pillow. From a distance of a foot and a half she looked at Gideon’s craggy face, stared right into his unfocused eyes. He looked awful. Well, Gideon never looked really awful, but he did make her think of the Marlboro Man coming off a binge, with his eyes dark as sin and the most beautiful mouth she’d ever seen on a man. Gideon usually managed to present himself to the world as cool, civilized and in charge. The polished veneer helped him deal with the money people who invested in the oil and gas deals he put together.

Not this morning, though. This morning his sophisticated image was ruined by his poor, reddened eyes and the dark stubble of his beard.

She smiled at him tremulously. “Good morning,” she whispered.

His eyes widened, then froze in an expression of absolute horror. “Oh. my God.”

She almost got away.

Gideon’s reactions were slowed by guilt and the worst hangover of his life. Cassie and the sheet made it to the edge of the bed before his sluggish brain caught on to the fact that she was leaving him and taking the covers. And he was naked. Naked and in bed with his best friend’s little sister.

He grabbed the end of the sheet and pulled. She fell back onto the bed, her breath whooshing out. The mattress bounced from her weight. He managed not to throw up. He closed his aching eyes, tucked the corner of the sheet around his hips, and lay very still, praying that she’d be still, too.

After a moment the room and his stomach stopped pitching, though the construction crew restructuring his skull from the inside out didn’t take a break. He realized Cassie hadn’t moved, hadn’t said a word since he’d recaptured the sheet she’d been trying to escape with.

The attempted escape had been typical Cassie—all emotion and impulse. This stillness and silence was not. “Cassie,” he muttered without opening his eyes. The sound of his voice bounced around painfully inside his head. “I’m sorry.” Sorry? At the moment he hated himself more than he’d ever hated anyone in his life. Even his father. “I don’t—Whatever happened, I’m sorry.”

“Whatever happened?” Her voice was thin, high. “You don’t remember?”

The construction crew in his head had his mental landscape all torn up. He tried to sort through the fragments, tried to grasp how he could be here. How could he be in bed with Cassie? It was supposed to be Melissa....

But Melissa had dumped him. Four days before the wedding Melissa had called him and rather hysterically backed out.

Gideon had not taken it well. He felt it still, the anger, the bewilderment. Gideon was used to wresting what he wanted from life. He’d wanted to marry Melissa. After getting to know him, she hadn’t wanted to marry him. He still didn’t know why.

“I called Ryan,” he said, remembering. He’d been at the Blue Parrot yesterday, and after a few drinks he’d decided to hold a wake for the dreams Melissa had tossed out the window when she’d rejected him.

The wedding that didn’t take place was the first important failure of Gideon’s life. He’d planned that wedding for years, since long before he met Melissa, and he was a man who accomplished what he set out to do. Hadn’t he reached every other important goal he’d set, from his college degree to his current financial success? But he’d failed at the most important goal, the one that all the others were supposed to lead up to—finding a woman, the right woman, who would marry him and give him what he had no way of getting for himself. A home.

When he’d thought of a wake, naturally he’d called Ryan O’Grady.

But Ryan’s little sister had come with him, little Cassie with the short, fiery hair and fey eyes. “He shouldn’t have brought you,” Gideon said now, harsh with the onslaught of fear because he couldn’t remember—which meant he’d gotten much. more drunk than he’d intended. He’d lost control. And Gideon never lost control. “What the hell was Ryan thinking of?”

“Drinking,” she said tartly. “That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? Someone to get drunk with. So I came along to do the driving and keep the two of you out of trouble.”

That’s what she always used to say, back when she was a skinny little nuisance trying to tag along with the two collegeage boys—that they needed her to keep them out of trouble. Of course, neither of them wanted to avoid trouble at that age. He used to call her... “Mermaid,” he said with rough affection. Those memories, at least, were untouched.

“Don’t call me that! Not after—not when you don’t remember!”

He flinched. Not after last night. Not after he, apparently, got so damned drunk he took his best friend’s sister to some damned hotel room and then took her to bed.

There had been a time, shortly after Cassie turned sixteen, when he’d been terrified that something like this would happen—when he’d been unable to keep his body from reacting to the sweet, new curves of a girl much too young for the lechery his mind kept picturing. But Gideon always did what had to be done. He’d learned to control his mind; eventually he’d even subdued the worst of his body’s responses, so that he’d been able to be around little Cassie without fearing he’d do something to frighten her or destroy his friendship with her or her brother.

Yet now... “How could Ryan let me do this?” he groaned. “Where the hell was your brother?”

“Don’t you remember anything?” Now her voice sounded thick with tears. “It was his idea.”

It was what? Gideon’s eyes popped open as he jerked to a sitting position. The construction crew promptly drove two burning stakes through his eyeballs. He flopped back down and breathed. Slowly. Carefully. And more pieces of the day before fell into place.

Ryan’s idea. It had been Ryan’s idea to charter the plane when there weren’t any commercial flights available. Or had that part been Gideon’s contribution? He wasn’t sure. He had drunk so damned much he’d lost pieces of his life. Gideon had to wrestle with self-loathing before he could turn his attention to the memories he did have.

Absurdly, the first memory that floated to the surface was of a pirate ship, complete with cannons blazing and men wielding cutlasses. And another ship, a frigate, and a battle between the two that took place... in front of a hotel?

Fireworks, not cannon fire. That’s what he’d seen, a carefully staged extravaganza. He remembered going inside the hotel, where the huge lobby gleamed with gold fixtures and a floor shiny enough to see yourself in. And he remembered Cassie’s body, slim and warm, tucked up against his as they walked into that hotel lobby. He hadn’t wanted to let her go even for a minute, because she might change her mind.

He remembered a taxi ride, and Cassie’s face, pale with nerves. The fare had been twelve dollars. He’d given the cabbie a twenty and asked him to wait.

“Vegas,” he said quietly. “We’re in Las Vegas.”

Her silence was confirmation enough. Or almost enough. After a long pause, he made himself move, propping up on one elbow. The jackhammers went crazy inside his head. He ignored them.

He looked down at Cassie’s triangular face. Even first thing in the morning her hair was too short and fine to hold a curl or a tangle. It framed her unhappy face in a fringe the color of sunrise. Her chameleon eyes were as gray as rain at the moment, and shiny with tears. Before this morning he would have sworn those eyes were as true and guileless as Cassie herself.

The twist of disillusionment went deep.

His gaze drifted down her slender neck to smooth, white shoulders speckled with a few pale freckles. Impossibly, his body stirred at the sight, which drew his brows together in a tighter scowl. Deliberately he looked from her shoulders to her small breasts, covered by the sheet she clutched tightly in place, and let his eyes linger on the slim gold band on the third finger of her left hand.

Finally he looked back at her face. “Congratulations, Mrs. Wilde,” he said bitterly. “A few others have tried to trick their way into sharing the name that goes on my bank statements, but I wasn’t expecting it from you. How much will it cost me to buy my way out of this mess?”

She reared up and punched him in the nose.

When Cassie stood under the hot spray of the shower six minutes later she was still shocked at herself. She’d never hit anyone before. Well, not since the fifth grade, anyway, when Sara Sue Leggett had told everyone Cassie got her clothes from the Dumpster behind the Salvation Army.

She ought to feel guilty. She really should. The man obviously had a wretched hangover, and she’d hit him.

Oh, she hoped his nose bled and bled. She just wished she could use up all the hot water so that he’d have to take a cold shower, but that was hard to do in a Las Vegas luxury hotel.

Las Vegas. Cassie bit her lip and poured shampoo into her palm from the little bottle the hotel furnished.

She’d known he might have regrets this morning, but she hadn’t known he could look at her the way he had. In the sixteen years since Ryan brought Gideon Wilde home with him from college for the first time, Cassie had seen Gideon’s face ice over like that before. He didn’t suffer fools gently, and he despised dishonesty. His scorn could be as withering as winter’s first frost. But he’d never turned that expression on her before. Not on her. She hadn’t expected that.

The shampoo smelled of almonds and lathered beautifully. It was, she noticed, a more expensive brand than she normally bought. Cassie sighed and ran her thumb over the unfamiliar ring on the third finger of her left hand. Gideon thought she’d married him so she could afford a better brand of shampoo.

How could she have been so stupid? How could she have let those two talk her into this?

They’d been at the Blue Parrot, a dinky little bar where Ryan and Gideon used to hang out during their impoverished college days. Maybe the location, with its nostalgic associations, had been partly responsible for the turn the conversation took. Ryan had grown increasingly Irish and sentimental as the afternoon waned into evening, and both men had put away a great deal more liquor than they normally would have.

But Cassie suspected that Ryan had drunk less than Gideon, while encouraging him to drink more. He’d gotten that crafty look in his eyes after the first couple of drinks, the expression that said he thought he was being sly...an expression that usually meant disaster was on its way. Her brother was about as successfully sneaky as a grizzly bear, a big, red-haired grizzly, who created the most havoc when he tried to tiptoe up on a problem instead of charging it with gleeful, bearlike rage. No, subtlety was not a virtue that ran in their family. But Ryan had never seemed to grasp how poor he was at it.

Gideon, unfortunately, had been a bit too intoxicated by then to recognize that gleam in Ryan’s eye.

“I have to kill him,” Cassie muttered, scrubbing her scalp vigorously. Her brother loved her. She knew he did. He also drove her crazy. Their father had died when Cassie was little, leaving their mother to raise them as best she could on split shifts and a waitress’s income. Ryan, six years older than Cassie, had appointed himself in charge of his sister’s life from that day on.

Until yesterday. Yesterday, he’d decided to put someone else in charge of taking care of Cassie—his best friend, Gideon, who needed a woman with more staying power than the blond icicle he’d been engaged to. A loyal woman. A woman, Ryan had emphasized, who could cook.

Cassie had tried hitting him at that point, but even drunk, Ryan’s reflexes were better than hers.

At least, she thought as the hot water rinsed the suds from her hair, my brother stopped short of pointing out just why he thought I’d go along with his stupid idea. He knew, though. He’d known for years and years.

She considered letting him live.

Of course, Ryan had probably only kept quiet because he knew that her feelings would register on the minus side of Gideon’s ledger, not the plus. Gideon did not trust strong feelings. He was emotionally frozen, in fact, which made him exactly the wrong sort of man for Cassie. She needed someone warm and loving, someone who could return all the feelings she longed to pour out. She’d forced herself to face that fact years ago...in her head, at least.

Surely, she thought, scowling at the fogged glass door of the tub enclosure, if she’d had any illusions left, Gideon had shattered them with that sorry excuse for a proposal yesterday. Unlike her brother, Gideon got quiet and serious when he drank. He’d listened gravely to Ryan’s heavy-handed suggestions for a substitute bride, then turned to Cassie and announced—not asked, but announced—“We can fly to Vegas tonight. That way I can still get married on my wedding day.”

Of course she’d said no. Lord, saying no had been easy. Not painless, but easy. Only somehow she’d wound up here, anyway, naked in Las Vegas with Gideon’s ring on her finger. And, she noticed with a wince as she soaped her body, with an unaccustomed tenderness in a very private place.

She was not going to cry. She’d given up crying for Gideon Wilde eight years ago, when she’d humiliated herself as thoroughly as a woman could. Well, she’d almost given it up. She’d had a minor relapse when she’d heard about the Icicle six months ago, but that didn’t really count. She couldn’t hold that night against herself.

Oh, but she could hold last night against herself. Last night, when he’d been drunk, hot and hasty... and this morning, when he hated her. She could blame herself for this morning.

No more, she told herself, shutting off the shower that would never run out of hot water no matter how long she stayed in. She’d made a mistake, a huge mistake, letting her brother convince her to listen to the man she’d been in and out of love with since she was twelve.

Not love, she corrected herself. Lust. She could not possibly love a man who didn’t remember their wedding night. Her problem, she decided, as she dried off with a towel twice the size any she owned, was that her hormones had gotten themselves fixed on Gideon from an early age, almost as soon as she started having hormones. Somehow, in spite of trying, she’d never gotten them straightened out

It was time to grow up. Gideon was always so damned cool and rational. He’d selected his fiancée that way, according to Ryan. Logically. Miss Melissa Southwark was everything Gideon wanted. She had the chilly, blond perfection that Cassie knew, with the painful certainty of experience, Gideon preferred in a woman.

Well, Cassie could be logical, too. She’d get her hormones straightened out, along with the rest of her. From this moment on, Cassie would be a different woman. Calm. Rational. In control.

First she had to undo last night’s mistake. But to undo a marriage...divorce was such an ugly word, and they’d only been married one night. Really, when you thought about it coolly and logically, one night didn’t count.

An annulment, she thought, zipping herself back into the jeans she’d been married in, would be best. Although it might not be easy to convince Gideon of that truth. If there was one area where he wasn’t always rational, it was what, in another age, would have been called his honor. Gideon didn’t lie, and he didn’t go back on his word. Ever.

What she had to do, she realized, as she pulled on yesterday’s wrinkled silk blouse, was persuade him the contract they’d entered into was not binding. How could she...

When inspiration struck, Cassie smiled, delighted with herself. Unfortunately she wasn’t looking in the mirror at that moment. If she had been, she might have recognized the gleam in her eyes, since it strongly resembled her brother’s expiression when he was at his craftiest. Just before he really messed things up.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Gideon said. He stood by the closed drapes in their room, wearing a scowl along with yesterday’s clothes.

Gideon hated to be rumpled and dirty. He hated the sour taste in his mouth, too, the faint stink of liquor clinging to his shirt and the pounding of his head. Cassie had hidden in the shower a long time, yet room service still hadn’t managed to appear with the coffee, aspirin, breakfast and clean clothes Gideon craved. And he hadn’t managed to come up with more than fragments of the night before. One of those fragments included a bed, darkness, Cassie... and a vivid, tactile memory of overwhelming lust. That fragment stood alone, banked on either side by foggy nothing. He couldn’t remember.

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.

Arousal still pulsed through him, making the tips of his fingers extraordinarily sensitive. That must have been why her skin felt so good to him, why he couldn’t resist stroking it lightly. He watched her eyes darken in response, and felt a flare of triumph.

She wanted him. He wanted her, too—but he could control his desires. He had to. “Give our agreement a chance, Cassie.” He slid his fingers down to her wrist and toyed with the delicate skin over her pulse point. “Be my bride. Live with me. Let me... take care of you.”

Cassie’s pulse was pounding. She knew Gideon could feel it. She wanted him to feel it, wanted, with a power that held her immobile, for him to go on touching her. Easily, naturally, she gave herself up to the feeling. “You just don’t want to admit you made a mistake,” she said, her voice husky. Cassie saw no contradiction between arguing with him and being aroused by him. “You’re not very flexible, Gideon. You think that because you’re married, however—” Her breath hitched as his fingers slid back up her arm, dragging tingles behind them like the frothy wake of a boat. “However accidental that marriage was, you think you should stay married. Stubborn.”

“Consistent,” he corrected. His fingertips slid up under the sleeve of her shirt. The small invasion felt unbearably intimate, as if he’d found some secret place On her body. “I’m a very consistent man.”

“It’s not logical,” she insisted as his fingers trailed around to the inside of her arm...lightly. Ever so lightly. Her skin broke out in goose bumps. “You don’t want to be married to me.”

His mouth, that beautiful, sensual mouth, tilted up at one corner. “Don’t I?” When his fingertips made a little circle on her arm, his knuckles grazed the side of her breast.

Oh, my. She swallowed so she wouldn’t gasp. Or moan. “You were going to marry the Icicle. I mean Melissa. You got drunk because you couldn’t marry her.”

His fingers stopped moving. His eyes went still with the dark, chill quiet of a frozen pond at night. Deliberately, his eyes fixed on hers, he repeated the motion of a moment before, circling the skin on her arm with his fingertips...circling the side of her breast with his knuckles. “You’re not sure if you can trust me, are you, Cassie?”

“It’s not very... consistent...of you,” she managed to say, “marrying me when you wanted her.”

He abandoned the pretense of rubbing her arm. His knuckles skimmed up the side of her breast. “I don’t want her now.” Slowly his hand went down. again. Up.

Helplessly her eyes closed as the undertow caught her, dragging her along like a shellfish tumbled by the tide across a gravelly ocean bed—a rough place in spite of the lightness of his caress, a place of confusion and sharp, conflicting currents.

Those hard, seemingly casual knuckles traced the curve of her breast, dipping under it, coming close to the nipple on the way up. Half of her breast seemed to catch the heat from his hand and reflect it back at him. The other half was cold, aching, bereft. His touch skimmed under her breast, around, closer to the tip, nearly touching it...nearly...circling...

“Gideon—?”

Her own longing forced her eyes open. He wasn’t looking at her face anymore. He stared openly at her breasts, at the bumps. her nipples made beneath the silk—the nipples he’d made harden, but refused to touch.

She grabbed his wrist. Her breath came hard, as if she’d been running. She didn’t know if she was going to shove his arm away or move his hand where she needed it. “What do you want?” she demanded hoarsely. “I have to know what you want from this marriage.” Sex? she thought wildly. He’d never wanted her before. Maybe his body remembered last night, though, even if his mind didn’t, because he wanted her now. Was sex enough to begin a marriage with? Could she accept it, if that was all he wanted from her?

Could she refuse?

Slowly his gaze left her breasts, sliding up again to her face. But she couldn’t read anything in his eyes, nothing but the settled darkness that spoke of both passion and control, a mixture Cassie couldn’t understand. “One year,” he said. “Give me one year to keep my word to you. Then we’ll end it.”

The pain was sharp enough to send her shooting to the surface. She sucked in air as if she’d actually been underwater, and stepped back. “An annulment would—”

He was shaking his head before she finished getting the word out of her mouth. “No. Not now. Not ever.”

Why? Why would he prefer divorce to—unless, she thought with an awakening flick of temper, he wanted to have her in his bed for that year.

That was it, she realized. The man had decided he wanted her, therefore he would have her. For a year.

She tried to step back. His hands slid to her waist and stopped her.

His eyes were unfathomable as they met hers. His harsh face gave nothing away, but his hands spread out, claiming more of her. His thumb almost brushed the underside of her breast. Heat arrowed through her, reminding her of passion... and frustration. “I’m not going to agree to an annulment,” he said. “Nor to a divorce. Not yet. Will you fight to be free of me, Mermaid?”

His eyes are so dark, she thought. So dark and filled with answers and questions she couldn’t guess, reasons and motives he didn’t want her to see. But for a moment as his fingers stirred her subtly, powerfully, she thought she saw past the control to the man beneath. A man who wanted her. A man who could be hurt.

“I guess,” she said, her voice damnably unsteady, “I’ll give it a try.”

She saw triumph, quickly masked, flare in Gideon’s eyes, and looked away. She wished she knew just how much of a fool she was being. How much had he manipulated her? With his touch, yes—he’d used his skill and her own hunger against her. She acknowledged that. But the other? Had she seen past the surface into the vulnerable man beneath—or had he let her have that glimpse, because on some level he knew that it was the one sure way to get what he wanted from her?

Three

When the door to Cassie’s apartment closed behind her at twelve-thirty that afternoon, she was alone.

Thank God.

She leaned her back against the door and looked at her haven, badly in need of this chance to catch her breath. She’d driven here from the airport, where her car had been parked. Gideon—her husband—had taken a limo to his apartment. A place she’d never seen. The place she was supposed to move into this afternoon. A moving company would be here soon to pack up her things, most of which would go into storage. Gideon had insisted on arranging it.

Exhaling with a whoosh, she sank to the floor, then just sat there, dazed, looking around the room that had been home for the past five years.

Cassie’s one-room apartment took up half of the converted third floor of a narrow old house in a part of Dallas the yuppies and preservationists hadn’t gotten around to saving yet. She’d collected its furnishings from flea markets and the occasional going-out-of-business sale. Because she loved textures, she had both wicker and wooden furniture. Because she loved color, both wicker and wood were painted in stained-glass colors, and the braided rug on the oak floor could have competed with Joseph’s coat of many colors. A huge, handwoven wall hanging on the north wall mixed feathers, yarn, rope, string and shells in shades of cream, turquoise and rusty red. Floor-to-ceiling shelves held books and other important objects. In one corner her banana-colored sheets and turquoise spread dipped to the floor from the sides of her unmade bed.

She looked at that bed. Only yesterday morning she’d been running late and decided not to make it up before leaving for work. Yesterday morning, when she was still single.

Cassie’s room was otherwise clean and tidy. She might thrive on chaos, but order, she firmly believed, had its place, and clean dishes were almost as important as clean paint brushes. Both the tidiness and the mismatched furniture suited her, as did the whole room full of comfortably worn objects—objects that were hers. And movers would come today, pack up everything but her clothes and toiletries, and put it all in storage.

She considered blaming her brother for her predicament. He’d pulled her aside in that hotel room and said that it was time to either fish or cut bait. If she wanted Gideon, she had him—for a year. If she didn’t want him badly enough to risk trying to keep him, she’d better get serious about getting over him.

Cassie looked at the one unabashedly messy area of the room. Between two windows sat her easel with the newly prepared canvas she’d planned to start on this weekend. Finished paintings leaned against the wall and the legs of the big, ugly table that held her painting supplies. Beneath easel and table stretched a paint-spattered drop cloth.

She thought wistfully that it would be lovely not to have to work. To paint all day. If this were a real marriage... But as things were, there was no way she could just live off Gideon. Maybe she could find something part-time...

Feet thudded on the outside stairs that led up to her apartment. Cassie winced. Her moment of privacy was over. The noisy feet paused at the second floor landing, where Cassie’s friend Moses lived. Cassie heard the knock that landed on Mo’s door and the husky female voice that called out, “Come on, Mo! Cassie’s back. Her car is out front.”

With a sigh Cassie pushed to her feet and stepped back from the door. There was no point in protesting the invasion that was about to occur. And they were, after all, her best friends.

The owner of that distinctive female voice hollered, “Come on!” at Mo. In a rushed clatter of feet she arrived at Cassie’s door and threw it open without knocking.

“Cassie!” Jaya Duncan stopped just inside the open door, hands on her skinny hips, her full skirts swishing around her ankles from the force of her arrival. “What the hell did you think you were doing, leaving that ‘won’t be home tonight’ message on my machine last night?”

“Keeping you from worrying?” Cassie offered. Knowing Jaya would be singing at the club at that hour, she’d taken thirty seconds to call from the airport. If her message had been rather sparse on details, well, she’d been in a hurry.

“Hah!” Jaya said. “You robbed me of hours of sleep, wondering what you were up to.”

Since Jaya was, as usual, vibrating with enough energy for two people, Cassie grinned unrepentantly. “You never bother to tell me when you’re going to stay out all night with your passion-of-the-month.”

“That’s different.” Jaya flicked one elegant hand dismissively. “I do that sort of thing. You don’t. Besides, you aren’t even seeing anyone. So where were you?”

Cassie was granted a brief reprieve when another figure, tall and slim and male, appeared behind Jaya. “Cassie,” Mo said, smiling that slow smile of his. “I’m glad to see you got back in one piece, in spite of Jaya’s proclamations of disaster.”

. Cassie smiled back. Her two friends couldn’t have made a greater contrast. Mo was quiet and steady, with gentle eyes, a big nose, and a fair complexion that suited his curly blond hair. Jaya’s exotic looks came from combining a Hindu mother with a Scots-Irish-Mexican father. Her skin was dusky, her dark hair as thick and glossy as a wig, and she was bossy as all get-out. She and Cassie had been friends since the second grade.

In addition, Jaya was thoroughly, enthusiastically heterosexual. Mo wasn’t.

“So where were you?” Mo asked, moving Jaya aside so he could come in.

Cassie sighed. “I was in Vegas, actually,” she said. “I got married.”

“M-m-married?” Jaya looked from Cassie to Mo and back. “Cassie?”

Cassie nodded and held up her left hand, fingers spread to show her ring.

“Oh, my God.”

“Those were Gideon’s words,” Cassie muttered.

“Gideon,” Jaya repeated. “Gideon Wilde. You married him? You actually married Gideon Wilde? Oh, my God.”

“Isn’t he the man you told me about?” Mo asked. Mo’s lover had left him six months ago, about the time Cassie heard about Gideon’s engagement. They’d sat up with a couple of bottles of wine and talked their way into morning. “The one who was engaged to someone else?”

She grimaced. “He isn’t engaged now. She broke off with him a few days ago.”

“Talk about rebound,” Jaya said. “I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it. You actually married him. How? Where? And you didn’t tell me! You didn’t even invite me!”

“You were singing at the club by then,” Cassie said. “And everything happened so fast—”

“Did you drug him? How did you get him to agree?”

“He asked me,” Cassie said, injured. “And I’ll have you know I didn’t say yes right away, either.” It had taken Gideon and Ryan working together almost a whole hour to get her to agree.

It hadn’t taken Gideon on his own that long to get her to set aside her idea of an annulment. Of course, he hadn’t exactly played fair about how he persuaded her.

She really ought to be upset about that.

“So what,” Mo asked gently, “are you doing here, if you’re married?”

“Packing.” Cassie bit her lip. Had she really agreed to leave everything she knew for a man who wanted her in his bed for a year? One year...and her brother had had to talk him up from six months.

She moaned and sank down onto the faded candy stripes of her sofa. “And before you ask—no, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m crazy. I’ve got to be crazy. How did I get myself into this?”

Jaya moved a newspaper folded to the Help Wanted section off the couch, and sat beside her. Mo sat on the other side. “Like usual, I imagine,” Jaya said, putting an arm around Cassie’s shoulders and squeezing. “You jumped in with both feet, damn the torpedoes and all that stuff. Just like you always do. Now, you tell me all about it. Who were you rescuing this time?”

“No one.” Cassie frowned. “Really, Jaya, I’m perfectly capable of minding my own business. I like to help people out sometimes, that’s all.”

“Whatever you say. Just tell me how you wound up marrying the man you’ve carried a torch for all these years. And why you’re so unhappy about it.”

“Not all these years,” Cassie protested. “Not continuously, anyway. I got tired of unrequited love when I turned twenty. Remember Randall?”

“Ha!” Jaya waved away the young man responsible for the loss of Cassie’s virginity with one scarlet-tipped hand. “That chipmunk doesn’t rate as even a minor distraction.”

“Randall was cute and sensitive.”

“Randall was a nerd.”

“Even if you don’t count Randall, I haven’t exactly been pining away. What about Max?” she demanded, referring to her only other serious involvement, with a baseball player she’d dated two years ago.

“Max is an idiot. A gorgeous idiot, sure, and even a pretty nice guy, which just made it harder for you to admit how much he bored you. He doesn’t count.”

“Then there’s Sam, or J.T., or any number of other guys I’ve dated—”

“Cassie,” Mo interrupted, “Jaya knows, and I know, that you date so many men because you think there’s safety in numbers. You like to fix the men you go out with—fix them up with a friend of yours or with a new job or just with a listening ear and good advice. You don’t go to bed with them, and you certainly don’t run off to Vegas with them. This Wilde is different.”

“That’s right,” Jaya agreed. “The fact is, you’ve never seriously tried to get Gideon Wilde out of your system. You’ve just played around at it. Now quit changing the subject, and tell us how you wound up married to him.”

So Cassie told them, leaving out a few of the really personal details, like her wedding night and what she’d told Gideon had happened. Or hadn’t happened. She wound up talking mostly about the ceremony itself—conducted in the Weddings-To-Go Chapel of Love.

“The three of us were on our way back from the license place,” she told them. “It’s open until midnight during the week and around the clock on weekends. Anyway, our cab passed this RV with a neon bride on the side, and Gideon flagged it down.”

Jaya laughed, and Cassie told her about the minister’s rhinestone-studded tuxedo, which had far outshone Cassie’s jeans and silk blouse. Mo, she noticed, didn’t say much. Finally, with a sigh, Cassie stood. “I’ve really got to get some things in a suitcase before the movers get here.”

“What do you mean ‘before the movers get here’?” Jaya went over to the tiny breakfast bar and lifted the lid of the pig-shaped cookie jar by one ear. The jar emitted a loud oink as she took out a couple of sandwich cookies.

“She said she was here to pack, Jaya.” Mo’s frown announced his opinion of her plans.

“But I thought—surely you’re not going to stay married, are you?” Jaya looked astounded. “I mean, running off to Vegas is a great adventure, but you have to draw the line somewhere. Moving in with the man—” Jaya stopped suddenly and pointed a cookie at Cassie. “Gideon does know you’re moving in, doesn’t he? You’re not planning to just surprise him?”

Mo laughed.

“Good grief! You do think I’m an idiot, don’t you? He knows. He gave me his key.” She ducked into her walk-in closet and heaved things around until she unearthed her suitcase. It was a huge relic her mother had found at some garage sale years ago. She dropped it on the bed and flicked the catches. “It’s his idea, actually. I wanted to get an annulment, but he wouldn’t listen.”

“An annulment?” Mo asked.

“Well, it might affect his business.” Cassie grimaced when she heard how lame that sounded. She pulled an armload of jeans from her dresser and carried them to the suitcase that lay flat and open, like a gaping maw, on her bed. “A lot of people knew about his engagement to Melissa, and how she ended things between them. He’s going to look foolish enough as it is, running off and marrying someone else on what was supposed to be the day he and the Icicle tied the knot. He’d look even dumber if we split as soon as we got back to Dallas.”

Both her friends just stared at her. She dumped the jeans in the suitcase, which swallowed them with room to spare, and tried to make what she was doing sound more reasonable. “A business reputation can be fragile. Some investors might lose confidence in Gideon over this.” The looks on their faces told her she wasn’t improving. Cassie gave up and went back to the dresser, opened her lingerie drawer, and pulled out a pile of colorful cotton, silk and nylon. The nightgown on top, a bright red wisp of silk, slithered to the floor. She bent to pick it up.

“Oh, no, you don’t.” Jaya slid in front of the dresser, slammed the drawer shut and barred Cassie from it with her body. “You are not going to pack until you start making sense, you hear? Even you wouldn’t agree to move in with a man just to help him keep his reputation solid in business. And why did you say annulled instead of divorced?”

“It doesn’t matter, since we aren’t getting either one. At least, not right away.” She tossed the nightgown over her shoulder. Since Jaya was standing in front of the dresser and Mo blocked the closet, and since Cassie didn’t want to tell her friends about Gideon’s one-year trial plan, she turned and headed for the bathroom.

The phone rang. “Get that, will you?” she called, and opened the battered metal tackle box that held her makeup. She could fit in her toothbrush and toothpaste, but not much else. “Damn,” she muttered. She still had to pack her shampoo and conditioner and eye drops and hair spray and first aid cream and curling iron and blow drier and...she put her hand on her stomach. It felt jumpy and unhappy.

“If you’re this nervous,” Mo said from the doorway, “maybe you should rethink what you’re doing.”

“There ’s so much to the business part of marriage,” she said. She’d never before considered the amount of paperwork involved in getting married. “I’ll have to cancel my utilities, change the name on my credit cards and with Social Security.”

He nodded, crossing his arms on his chest and leaning against the door frame. “Then there’s the post office. You’ll need to leave a change of address there, cancel the newspaper and change your magazine subscriptions.”

Cassie bit her lip. She hadn’t even moved in with Gideon, and already she felt as if her life were being swallowed up in his. “It makes sense to move into his place, though,” she told Mo—or maybe herself. “It’s bound to be a lot bigger than mine.”

“Bound to,” he said agreeably.

“It’s probably all black-and-white, though,” she muttered. She did remember Gideon’s fondness for those two noncolors from her one visit to another apartment of his eight years ago. She sighed and turned, catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror. The cherry red nightgown was still draped over her shoulder. Thoughtfully she pulled the bit of silk provocation down and looked at it.

This was one thing, she understood suddenly, that she wouldn’t need. Not yet. She had to keep some part of herself separate while they both adjusted to this marriage. Maybe, she thought with the optimism that was part of her, it wouldn’t have to be for long. Maybe she’d be able to get under his guard, get him to let down his walls quickly once she was actually living with him.

Yes. she needed time. She was desperately vulnerable to him. She needed him to be a bit vulnerable, too, before they made love again.

Or for the first time, as far as he was concerned.

“Hey, Cassie,” Jaya called from the other room. “This guy on the phone wants to know if you want to buy some supplemental accident insurance.”

“Too late,” she called back, flicking the nightgown up over the shower curtain rod. “Fate can’t possibly have another accident in store for me.” Not after yesterday’s head-on collision.

“It’s not too late,” Mo corrected her. “You don’t have to do this, Cassie, if it isn’t what you want.”

She met his eyes and said softly, “Maybe it was too late years ago.”

He held her gaze steadily for a long moment. “Okay,” he said at last, laying his hand on her shoulder. “No more questions, no more pressure. But you know where to come if you need anything, don’t you?”

Her eyes filled. She smiled and nodded.

“Oh, no,” Jaya said as she joined them. “Are you two getting sentimental on me?”

“Cover your eyes,” Mo said equably. “We’re almost finished.” He gave Cassie’s shoulder a last squeeze. “Since you’re determined to do this, I’ll go get that overnight case you always borrow when you visit your mom. You can load some of this stuff in it.” He turned and left.

“You could help me pack, too,” Cassie pointed out to the friend who remained, and started pulling things out of the medicine cabinet. She paused, holding up an odd-looking pile of glued-together seashells that usually sat on the vanity. It somewhat resembled an angel with chunky, gold-tipped wings.

Jaya folded her arms in front of her flat chest. “Help you screw up? I don’t think so.” She noticed what Cassie held and snorted. “I still can’t believe you bought that thing. Artists are supposed to have some sort of standards.”

“Art,” Cassie said loftily, turning the little statue over to inspect it from a different angle, “is about genuine feeling. This is as genuine a piece of cheap tourist kitsch as any I’ve seen.” And the old woman who made and sold the statues had delighted Cassie.

Jaya might have been reading her mind. “That old woman knew a pigeon when she found one.”

“She did, didn’t she?” Cassie smiled, remembering the mixture of shrewdness and humor in eyes cradled in several decades’ worth of wrinkles. But amusement drained out as she considered the present. Wistfully she said, “I can’t quite see this in any place Gideon owns, can you?”

“Cassie.” Jaya’s narrow face was earnest and worried. “Think about what you’re doing, here. Running off and marrying Gideon Wilde is one thing—an impulse, maybe a mistake, but nothing you can’t fix. Moving in with a man who doesn’t want your stuff cluttering up his place is something else entirely.”

Cassie had to smile at Jaya’s unique slant on what was important. “Living together tends to follow marriage. And... I did make promises.”

“Is that why you’re doing this?” Jaya demanded. “Because you said ‘I do’ when some preacher told you to?”

“Maybe,” Cassie admitted. There were other reasons, like the friendship between her brother and Gideon. She didn’t want to see either man lose that, but it would be especially hard on Gideon. Cassie wasn’t sure he had any other friends. “Mostly, though,” she admitted at last, “I’m doing it for me. Because I’ve got a chance at him now, and I’d be a fool to toss that aside just because I’m scared, wouldn’t I?”

“Lord, I don’t know.” Jaya ran an impatient hand through her hair, making the spiky bangs stand up straight. “I don’t—what’s that? It sounds like a truck.”

Oh, Lord. “The movers.” Still carrying the little shell angel, Cassie hurried out of the bathroom and looked out one of the windows.

Sure enough, in the driveway below, a man with a droopy mustache and a cigar was climbing down from the passenger side of a big, orange moving van. Cassie watched, paralyzed, as the door on the driver’s side swung open and a skinny man in a red shirt stepped down.

They were here. They were going to pack up her things and put them away somewhere. Her fingers dug into the edges of the shells hard enough to hurt, but she didn’t notice as she looked wildly around the room. What should she take with her? What had to be left behind?

She felt Jaya’s hand on her shoulder. “You want me to get rid of them?” her friend asked.

Cassie looked down at the awkward angel, biting her lip and thinking about Gideon’s apartment. Not his current apartment. He’d been living at an address not quite as expensive, not quite as exclusive, when she’d humiliated herself so thoroughly on the night of her twentieth birthday. But she remembered very clearly the white carpet, silvery gray couches and black lacquered tables. Just like she remembered the pale blond hair of the woman who’d been in his apartment.

That hair, the subtle shade of ripened wheat, had been the only color in the room.

Of course. Cassie’s panic fled as she realized what she needed to do. “Jaya,” she said slowly, “do me a favor and go tell those guys I won’t be needing them, okay? They can bill Gideon for an hour of their time or something.”

Jaya whooped. “I knew it,” she said, her long legs taking her to the door in a twinkling. “I knew you were too smart to do this.”

“That’s right,” Cassie said, moving briskly herself now that she’d decided. She stopped at the little breakfast bar where Mickey Mouse held the telephone receiver out. “There’s simply no reason to make all these decisions today. I’m paid up until the end of the month, so I’ll leave most of the furniture here for now. We don’t need to pay a mover for the other stuff.”

“Cassandra Danielle O’Grady.” Jaya turned, one hand on the doorknob. “What are you talking about? You aren’t still planning on moving, are you?”

“My name,” she said as she dialed, “is now Cassandra Danielle O’Grady Wilde.” And that was the key. As of last night, she was part of Gideon’s life. Even if he’d changed his mind and didn’t want her there. Even if he did try to put fences around their relationship with his stupid one-year-marriage idea. Even if he had an apartment full of grays and blacks with no color....

Especially because he lived without color. He needed Cassie, needed her and her paints and her tacky little shell angel, and she didn’t need to put half of her life in storage in order to be with him. She had to believe that, or give up hope right now.

Cassie was simply no good at giving up. “I thought I’d see if Sam and Nugget could bring a truck and some muscles,” she explained to Jaya. who glared at her from the doorway, as Cassie listened to the phone ringing at the other end. “I’m sure Mo will help, too. Even if I leave some of the furniture here, there will be a lot of lifting involved, and it’ll go faster if—oh, hi, Sam. I have a favor to ask. But first...guess what I did yesterday?”

Four

At 5:20 Gideon started clearing off his desk. He put the rolled seismic section he’d been studying into the stand behind his desk and shut down the computer. After a brief hesitation he put his working disk in his desk drawer, which he locked. He wouldn’t take any work with him today. Cassie was waiting.

When he reached for his coffee cup he noticed the framed photograph that had sat on his desk for the past six months, a token that had reassured him daily of how close he was to his goal. How close he’d thought he was. The painful bewilderment that had ridden him for the past five days, ever since Melissa’s phone call, rose again to tighten his throat.

He couldn’t very well keep the picture of his former fiancée on his desk now that he’d married another woman, could he? Gideon picked up the picture.

Six months ago, when he and Melissa had become engaged; her parents had given him this studio photograph of their daughter, framed in silver. He held it in his hands now, feeling the weight of that heavy frame, staring at the lovely, poised woman in the pale blue Chanel suit who was supposed to have become his wife.

Why hadn’t she wanted him?

It should have been perfect. They never argued, and their tastes were almost identical. They’d agreed on everything from music to movies to where they would live and what kind of house they would live in. Oh, they’d had a minor difference over the wedding itself. They’d agreed that the sanctuary at St. Luke’s was the only possible place for the ceremony, but St. Luke’s was the most fashionable church in the city. The sanctuary had been booked up on weekends for the next two years. Gideon had put his foot down. No way was he waiting more than six months, as Melissa had urged at first. In the end, she’d agreed to a weekday ceremony. At least she had told him she agreed. How could he be sure of anything now? She’d also told him she wanted to marry him. and she hadn’t meant that.

Slowly Gideon opened the back of the frame and slid out the glossy photo. He unlocked his desk, opened the. bottom drawer and pulled out a photo album.

The album had been cheap to start with—a dull green binder with gilt trim stamped into the vinyl. Now, many years and much handling later, it looked shabby and completely out of place in the elegant office.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

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