Claiming His Christmas Wife. Dani Collins

would have had a cashier’s check in hand to pay him back every cent she’d been awarded in their divorce settlement—money she knew he felt she’d conned out of him. Somehow, in her fantasy, she found the words to explain why she’d taken it and he had, if not forgiven her, at least not despised her any longer.

      Maybe his feelings toward her weren’t that bad. He was here, wasn’t he? Maybe he cared a little. Had he been worried for her?

      She heard a zipper, which made her open her eyes out of curiosity—

      Oh, no.

      “You went through my things?” She clamped her eyes shut against the small red change purse that had belonged to her mother. It held Imogen’s valuables—her driver’s license, her debit card, her room key, the only photo she had of her with her sister and mother, and the marriage certificate stating Travis Sanders was her husband.

      “The nurse was looking for your next of kin.” Oh, this man had a way with disdain. It dripped from a voice which was otherwise deep and warm with an intriguing hint of Southern charm.

      She was a connoisseur of disparaging tones, having experienced a lot of them in her lifetime. Neighbors. Teachers. Daddy dearest. Inured as she ought to be, this man cut into her with scalpel-like precision with his few indifferent words.

      He didn’t care if he was the only person left in this world whom she had any connection to. He found his brief association with her abhorrent when he thought about her at all.

      “It’s my only other piece of identification.”

      “Birth certificate?” he suggested.

      Burned after an argument with her father ages ago. So childish.

      She wanted to throw her arm over her eyes and continue hiding, but her limbs were deadweights and the small twitch of trying to lift her arm made her aware of the tube sticking out of it.

      She looked at the IV, the ceiling, him.

      Oh, it hurt so badly. He had somehow improved on perfection, handsome features having grown sharper and more arrogantly powerful. He was clean-shaven, not ruggedly stubbled and human-looking the way she remembered him when she dared revisit their shared past—hair rumpled by her fingers, chest naked and hot as he pressed her into the sheets.

      Whatever warmth she had ever seen in him had been iced over and hardened. He wore a tailored three-piece suit in charcoal with a tie in frosted gray. His mouth, capable of a sideways grin, was held in a short, stern firmness. Flat gray eyes took in what must appear like soggy laundry dumped out of the washer before it had even been through the rinse cycle. That’s about how appealing she felt. While he was...

       Travis.

      Just thinking his name made her throat flex in an agony of yearning. Remorse.

      Why was she always in the wrong? Why was she always falling down and getting messy and driving people away when all she wanted was for someone, anyone, to love her just a little? Especially the people who were supposed to.

      Oh, she really was a mess if she was going to get all maudlin like that.

       Pull it together, Immy.

      “Is there someone I should call?” Flat silver dollars, his eyes were. When she had met him, she had thought his gray eyes remarkable for being so warm and sharp. The way he had focused his gaze on her had been more than flattering. It had filled up a void of neglect inside her.

      Today they were as emotionless and cold as her father’s ice-blue eyes. She was nothing to Travis. Absolutely nothing.

      “You’ve done enough,” she said, certain he was the reason she was in this five-star accommodation. She flicked her gaze to the window. Snow was falling, but the view was likely a blanket of pristine white over a garden of serenity.

      “You’re welcome,” he pronounced derisively.

      Oh, was she supposed to thank him for saving her life by further impoverishing what was left of it?

      “I didn’t ask you to get involved.” She ignored the fact that she kind of had, carting around their marriage certificate instead of their divorce papers. Where had those ended up, she wondered.

      “Oh, this is on me,” he said with unfettered scorn. “I came here thinking—well, it doesn’t matter, does it? I made a mistake. You, Imogen, are the only mistake I have ever made. Do you know that?”

       CHAPTER TWO

      TRAVIS HEARD HER breath catch and watched her eyes widen in surprise at how ruthlessly he’d thrown that direct hit.

      He didn’t feel particularly bad about knocking her when she was down. He was speaking the truth, and she was showing an annoying lack of appreciation for his helping her when he could have hung up at the sound of her name.

      He should have. Imogen Gantry was the epitome of a clichéd, spoiled New York princess. Self-involved, devious and intent on a free ride.

      She didn’t look like much right now, of course. What the hell had she been up to that she had wound up in an overcrowded, understaffed emergency room, unable to speak for herself?

      “Be happy I had you transferred. Do you know where they took you, when they scraped your frozen body off the sidewalk? What were you doing in that part of the city anyway?”

      “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.” Her green eyes met his briefly, glimmering with indecision as she wavered toward telling him something, then decided against it. The light in her gaze dimmed and she looked away.

      Drugs, he had surmised darkly when he’d heard where she’d been picked up and seen how gaunt she was. It seemed the only explanation. Blood tests hadn’t found anything, however. No track marks or withdrawal symptoms, either.

      She’d been raging with fever, though. Had a terrible ear infection that had thankfully responded to the intravenous antibiotics. It was something that should have been dealt with sooner, the doctor had said. She could have lost her hearing or wound up with meningitis. He’d looked at Travis as though it was his fault she was so ill.

      That had been when she’d been transferred here to this enormously better-equipped private hospital. Travis had been trying to remember her birthday and searching for her details online only to discover she didn’t seem to exist anywhere but in the flesh. He’d found a handful of very old posts, selfies with other socialites at whichever clubs had been the it spot around the time they’d married, but aside from her father’s obituary, which was short and stated no service would be held, there was nothing recent about her online.

      Her father’s house had been sold, he quickly discovered, and Travis hadn’t been able to find her current address. He’d had to write down his own. He had acted like her husband and approved her treatment, underwriting the cost. What else was he supposed to do?

      Whatever they’d given her for the pain had knocked her out for almost twenty-four hours. Given how bedraggled she’d looked, he’d deduced she needed the sleep.

      She still had dark circles around her eyes and an olive tinge in her normally ivory face. The hollows in her cheeks he put down to some women’s desire for a skeletal frame in the name of fashion, but she was overdue for a manicure and her hair was limp and dull.

      Looking at her, all he felt was pity at her condition. Tired anger. He had known he was making a mistake even as he married her, so why had he gone through with it?

      The doctor came in at that moment, along with the nurse who elevated her bed. The doctor wanted her to finish her course of antibiotics orally and said she was anemic. Needed iron.

      “You’re run-down. Burnt out. I’m prescribing a few weeks off work, along with high-potency multivitamins and proper eating. Get your strength back.”

      “Off”