The Once-a-Mistress Wife. Katherine Garbera

was aware of the murmuring of voices behind him, but he didn’t pay attention to anyone save the woman in his arms. His woman. She hadn’t been taking very good care of herself. She’d lost weight and her skin was pale. He wondered if she’d mended bridges with her grandfather and what that had cost her.

      He cupped her face. “Mary.”

      Her eyes blinked open, and he stared into that familiar Caribbean-blue color, reminding him of the month they’d spent at his vacation home in the British Virgin Islands. “Mary-Belle, are you okay?”

      “Kane?”

      “Yes, darling.”

      As she looked up at him, confusion knitted her brow. “I’m not your darling anymore.”

      A spear of anger went through him and he had to tamp down on his instinctive response, which was to take her in his arms and prove that she was still his. To prove that Mary would react to him the way she had from the first moment they met. But she was a married woman now, and he knew the way she felt about married people and affairs.

      “We can discuss that later,” he said.

      A spark lit her eyes, the kind that in the past had always led to a spirited argument and then eventually to the bedroom. “Will your wife take part in the discussion?”

      “I’m divorced. And your husband?”

      She flushed and shook her head. “No husband.”

      No husband. She was free. He felt a surge of possessive determination. Now that he had her back in his arms, he wasn’t going to let her go again. He’d done his bit for family and lineage, and that had cost him—more than he ever wanted this woman to know. They were both available again, and he was suddenly determined not to screw up the way he had before. He would not lose her again.

      “Mary? Are you okay?”

      He glanced over his shoulder to see four women walking toward him with a group of men a few steps behind. He tightened his hold on Mary.

      “I’m fine, Emma. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

      He wondered how much of that was due to her child. He didn’t know much about the little blighters, but every book he’d read had said that they were time-consuming.

      There were dark circles under her eyes, and he wished for a moment he still had the right to carry her out of this room, to find a private place. But he didn’t. He lowered her to the ground, deliberately torturing himself by allowing her body to rub against his.

      There were too many people around to have the discussion they needed to have. And he wanted—no, needed—to simply hold this woman who looked too fragile.

      She took a step away from him, but he held onto her wrist.

      “What are you doing?” she asked.

      “Claiming what is mine,” he said, stating the truth of why he was in Eastwick, especially now that he knew there was no husband. When he’d first read the announcement of David Duvall’s death in the Wall Street Journal, he’d barely taken note of the fact—until he’d seen Mary’s name listed as next of kin.

      He’d been quietly searching for her for over a year now. His men hadn’t been able to find any trace of her at the Paris apartment building where he’d last known her to live.

      “I’m not yours anymore,” she said again, tugging hard and pulling her hand away from him.

      “Come with me,” he said.

      “Why?”

      “I want to speak to you,” he said, ignoring her friends.

      “We are speaking, Mr. Brentwood.”

      “Alone,” he said, using his hold on her waist to draw her closer to him. She had always had the ability to make him forget all rules of good breeding and react like a man. He felt the urge to do something horribly crass, such as toss her over his shoulder and carry her out of this room.

      “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

      He should never have put her on her feet. He should have kept her in his arms…where she belonged. “Don’t push me, Mary-Belle. I’m not in the mood for it.”

      She stiffened at the nickname and gave him a hard glare. He lowered his head, brushing his lips against hers. A surge of arousal shot through his body as her mouth opened under his—the same way it always had. He slipped his tongue between her lips, hungry for her taste. It had been too damned long since he’d sated himself on Mary.

      Someone cleared their throat, and Mary pulled away from him. Kane kept his hand on her waist and gave the man who was glaring at them a withering stare.

      “Who is this?” the man asked. He had thinning hair and a pinched expression on his face. He looked at Mary with ill-disguised loathing, and Kane pulled her more fully against his side, under his shoulder. Offering her his protection.

      She elbowed him in the ribs, and he frowned at her but did not release her. Mary had always been so ethereal, dancing in and out of his life in a way that made him suspect he’d never be able to hold her for long. He would not waste this opportunity.

      “Channing, I’d like you to meet Kane Brentwood. We met when I was living in London. Kane, this is my cousin Channing Moorehead, and his sister Lorette.”

      He shook hands with both of them. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

      “We were very close to Uncle David,” Lorette said. “We’ve always lived our lives in an exemplary manner…to show our respect for him.”

      “We’re all impressed, Lorette,” Emma said with a touch of sarcasm.

      Mary smiled gratefully at her friend, and Kane realized, with his usual sense of great timing where Mary was concerned, he’d bungled into a moment where he shouldn’t have. There was a real tension between Mary and her cousins—something not unlike the tension between him and his family.

      Lorette turned toward Emma to say something and Mary quietly withdrew, stepping away from the others in the anteroom. The behavior was so unlike the Mary he’d known, but grief did make people vulnerable.

      He cupped her elbow and drew her farther away from the others. “What’s their problem?”

      “Don’t worry about it, Kane. It has nothing to do with you.”

      “I’m not so sure you’re right, Mary-Belle. I’m not going to simply walk now that I know we’re both free.”

      “I’m a different woman now, Kane. I have an image to uphold,” she said, glancing over her shoulder to make sure that no one was near. “One that makes it impossible to be your mistress.”

      “What image? I saw your work in a London gallery last spring. Your canvases were always remarkable, but there is something…breathtaking about these new ones.”

      “Thank you, Kane. But it’s not my image as an artist that I’m concerned with. No one here knows anything about that part of my life.”

      Kane couldn’t believe that she’d keep something that was such an integral part of who she was a secret. Mary had lived and breathed painting the entire time they’d been together—almost ten years. He’d had to resort to being her model a time or two to get her attention.

      “What image are you concerned with, darling? That of being a mother?”

      “No. My child was stillborn,” she said softly, and he felt the pain in her words. He wanted to comfort her, but she shook her head.

      “I was speaking of the Duvall family image. I came home to claim my heritage, Kane. A heritage that isn’t as old as yours but is every bit as stringent. I have to go now. Thanks for coming.”

      He nodded and let her walk away. He wasn’t sure what to make of the new Mary or her words. But one thing was very certain—now that he’d