The Wrong Wife. Eileen Wilks

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