The Prodigal Wife. Susan Fox P.

had no doubt that Elisa was giving him a report on her disheveled appearance, and she cringed. The last thing she wanted was for Gabe to think she was playing on his sympathy so he’d be nicer to her and perhaps consider forgiving her.

      When she’d finished, Lainey found her way to the dining room. She’d never seen the private areas of Gabe’s house, but she had been in the main rooms a handful of times years ago. When she reached the formal room, she halted just inside the double doors.

      Gabe sat at the head of the long gleaming table, his overlong dark hair still damp from his shower. The jeans and blue-striped shirt he had on were fresh but fairly common. He didn’t fuss over his clothes like men who were born to wealth or who worked in offices, and yet there was a quality about him that made him look just as neatly pressed and turned out in work clothes as he did in a suit and tie.

      Gabriel Patton was a man who’d grown a substantial income from practically nothing through hard work, careful savvy, and the sheer power of his iron will. He was a man without a college education who’d taken big risks, refused to fail, and whose handshake on a deal made its outcome as certain as the sunrise.

      Which was why her wrong beliefs about him had been such a profound insult to his integrity. This was a man who’d worked relentlessly to overcome his hardscrabble upbringing and achieve success. To even hint that he’d married her out of greed or to get anything by underhanded means was not only untrue but morally wrong.

      The dark eyes that were too perceptive and too flat and hard to make her feel even a whisper of comfort, took note of her sudden entrance. The chill in his gaze kept her where she was and certainly didn’t show a hint of welcome. She endured it when his gaze flashed down the front of her to her feet, but it came back up so suddenly that she thought she’d imagined the swift look.

      “I apologize,” she said quickly. “Time got away from me.”

      Gabe didn’t comment on that, but instead called his housekeeper in. When Elisa appeared, he simply glanced her way and she disappeared back into the kitchen. Then his gaze shifted back to Lainey.

      “Might as well sit.”

      Lainey walked to the place setting to the right of his. Gabe rose briefly to seat her, but she knew right away that he did it only because she was a female guest and he was her host. The fact that he didn’t neglect the courtesy gave her a slim bit of hope.

      Elisa brought a tray of food into the silent room and efficiently set everything out before she retreated to the kitchen. Lainey followed Gabe’s lead and reached for her napkin.

      He didn’t speak to her and she didn’t feel comfortable trying to speak to him. There was nothing she could conclude about his mood except that it must be dark. He certainly wasn’t brimming with eagerness to make conversation with her, so she tried to eat the steak and assortment of vegetables and crusty bread set before her. When the silence bore down too heavily, she found something neutral to say.

      “Elisa is an excellent cook.”

      As if her remark had reminded him that she was sitting at the same table he was, Gabe looked her way. She couldn’t bear the searching impact of his gaze, so she looked down at her plate of food and gamely caught a piece of steak with her fork tine.

      “You eat like she’s poisoned it.”

      A nervous breath burst out of her before she could stop it. “No, I’m…sorry. My appetite isn’t good, but that’s not because the food isn’t…excellent.” She couldn’t seem to stop herself from glancing toward him to see his reaction.

      As she’d half feared, he was watching her steadily and one of his brows showed a faint curl of both skepticism and curiosity.

      “What’d you do?” he asked gruffly. “Get religion?”

      The remark felt brutal but she tried not to be discouraged. “I found out what I should have known from the be—”

      “Save it.”

      Subject closed. What little appetite she might have had left flitted away, and she gripped the napkin in her lap with one hand while she tried to force-feed herself the piece of steak with the other. It immediately became difficult to chew, then once she’d got the job done, it was difficult to swallow. She set her fork down and reached for her water glass to take a helpful sip.

      And immediately choked on the water. Self-consciousness made it worse, and she covered her mouth with the napkin while the spasms died down. To her relief, Gabe didn’t remark on it and never once did she feel the sensation of being stared at.

      There were advantages to being ignored and this was one of them. But under the circumstances, Gabe’s continued silence, his skepticism and his obvious lack of interest in conversation, seemed to emphasize how little interest he had in any potential apology from her. It was as if he was only biding his time with her, but why? Why put up with her at all if he wasn’t interested in the reason she was here or what she had to say?

      Lainey made another attempt at her meal, but finally gave up and sat silently, her hands clenched together out of sight in her lap. The mantel clock at the side of the room above the river stone fireplace ticked off the endless seconds. Hundreds of seconds, thousands of them, billions.

      And then Elisa came in with a small tray of dessert. The pedestal dessert glasses were filled with chocolate mousse and topped with a crinkly dollop of whipped cream. Chilled, the outside of the stout glasses were already beginning to fog over as Elisa removed Lainey’s picked over plate and replaced it with the dessert.

      Normally the treat was Lainey’s favorite, but her appetite reacted no better to the sight of it than it had to the fine meal. Nevertheless, she couldn’t refuse it so she picked up her spoon to dig in. At least the mousse would slide down more easily than the steak and vegetables had.

      She’d managed two bites before the rich chocolate flavor touched off her appetite. Focused on the rich dessert, she was able to keep from glancing toward Gabe. But then she heard a soft sound of movement and glanced his way in time to see him lift his untouched chocolate and set it next to the one she’d nearly finished.

      “Fill in those empty places,” he said, his voice low and gravelly with a kind of masculine gentleness that caught her off guard and sent a tidal wave of emotion through her.

      “But don’t you—”

      “Your favorite, not mine.”

      His dark gaze was probing again, but with less force than before. Now it dawned on her that he might have made a special request to Elisa to prepare the dessert. If so, why had he been so harsh with her during the meal? Was this sudden generosity some sort of apology?

      Leery of rejecting what might at least be a small offering of thoughtfulness, she made herself murmur a soft thanks. She’d eat the second dessert if it killed her. Though it went down slower than the first one, she managed the task but when it was gone, she set her spoon down and waited tensely for what would happen next.

      “Elisa’s taken our coffee to the den.”

      Lainey’s momentary relief that the meal was finally done was swallowed up by renewed anxiety as she eased back her chair to stand. Apparently Gabe meant to let her have the talk she wanted, but now that the time had come, she was back to worrying that he’d reject everything she had to say.

      Lainey stood and then paused, glancing up at him. “I need to get my briefcase.”

      The dark flicker in his gaze held hers. “If it’s papers, I’m not interested.” The dark flicker vanished because his gaze shifted and he waited for her to precede him out of the room. Once they were through the doors she hesitated, not certain where the room was.

      As if he’d remembered that, Gabe directed her along the edge of the large living room to a hall in the east wing that brought them quickly to the den. French doors on the outside wall opened to a wide patio that was ringed with enough trees to shade the patio stones in the heat of the day.

      All the other walls in the room were