The Prodigal Wife. Susan Fox P.

carpet made up of a small variety of dark shades that wouldn’t show much of what might get tracked in during a workday.

      Lainey might have felt comfortable in the large room and taken several minutes to more closely examine several of the pieces in the bookcases if anyone but Gabe had owned the room. Hesitantly she sat down on one of the two leather wing chairs he indicated in front of the big desk. The coffee tray was on the small table between her chair and his, so she looked over at him as he was sitting down.

      “Pour for both of us, if you like,” he said, and settled back to watch her fill their cups.

      She handed the first cup to him, then poured one for herself to soothe her dry mouth. When she’d finished, she slid back only slightly in the big chair to take a sip before she set the cup back down on the table. Weary of the wait but so anxious about it that she was on the verge of losing her nerve, she plunged in.

      “I’m not sure where to start, but there are several things you deserve to hear.”

      Now she braved a look at him and saw him leaning back calmly, studying her face. “Start with your plans for July.”

      The gravelly request caught her off guard. He’d made it sound like a request, though he’d worded it as a demand. July was the month they’d been married five years ago. According to her father’s will, July was the month that sole control of Talbot Ranch would revert to her if she’d stayed married to Gabe for a full five years.

      “I’m not here about who’ll control Talbot Ranch or what will happen in July with this marriage. I’m here to apologize and, if you’re interested, to explain why I’ve acted the way I have.”

      “I’m not interested in pretty apologies. What I’m interested in are your plans for July. Will you file for divorce?”

      Lainey couldn’t mistake the iron will beneath his words. Or the fine thread of anger mixed in. But why would divorce even be a question after what she’d done to him all these years? As far as she was concerned, divorce was a given. What Gabe didn’t know was that she’d found out about what he’d done for Talbot Ranch and she planned to do something about it.

      “I’ve just recently found out that Talbot Ranch was virtually bankrupt when you took over,” she began, “and it looks like you saved it single-handedly in spite of what I did to you. I suspect you covered my inheritance taxes out of your own pocket when I thought they’d come from my father’s investments.”

      She paused, but his stony expression told her nothing. “And since the quarterly checks I thought were from profits due me from Talbot Ranch must also have been paid out of your private accounts, I owe you a substantial amount of money in addition to a complete apology.”

      Lainey finished briskly with, “On the subject of July, I’m certain you can’t possibly want to stay married a second longer than you agreed to.”

      “Why’s that?”

      The sudden comeback was unexpected, and she sat there a moment until she realized why. This was the opening for her to finally make the “pretty apology” he kept referring to so skeptically.

      “As I’ve said—”

      “I made a vow,” he said, bluntly cutting her off, “‘till death do us part.”’

      The quiet words were like a sudden blow and Lainey felt the punch so vividly that it stole her breath. Her brain registered the shock, then she felt a new one when she belatedly realized the significance of what he’d just said.

      I made a vow…

      A vow made by a man whose handshake was as dependable as the sunrise; a vow made by a man whose words could be carved in granite and put in a museum.

      Till death do us part…

      “Surely you didn’t…” Her voice trailed away as the breathless feeling affected her again. “There’s no reason for you to sacrifice…”

      The right words wouldn’t seem to come to her, but however shocked and rattled she was by what he’d said, Gabe was sitting back comfortably, his dark eyes intense as he watched everything about her and appeared to be waiting for her to finish what she was struggling to say.

      “It was a marriage yes, but not a real marriage,” she tried again. “A—a business deal to help protect my inheritance, not a real…marriage?” The question she’d subconsciously put on the word invited an answer she hadn’t wanted to ask—didn’t want!—and her nerves began to jump and twist and scream.

      Gabe seemed to know all that, so he let the wild silence stretch before he spoke, and the wait seemed to underscore every word that fell on her like the blow of a rock chisel on that museum-worthy piece of granite.

      “No business deal I’ve ever made came with a ‘till death’ pledge before a judge,” he drawled in a low, rough voice, “or a wedding ring. Or a woman’s signature next to mine on a marriage license.”

      The flash of heat that went through her all the way from her hairline to her feet scrambled her brain. She tried to think of something to say to that, some way to counter the grim statement he’d just made.

      “You can’t mean that—you can’t really want me.” Another thought saved her and she added hastily, “Is this a way to get back at me for…what I’ve done to you all these years?”

      She stared at him in the long silence while shock after shock thrummed through her and pounded home the knowledge that Gabriel Patton really did aim to stay married to her. There was no mistaking the flinty look in his eyes as anything but resolve.

      “What did you think I was supposed to get?” he asked then, and she felt her heart quiver.

      She sealed her lips firmly together, loathe to say the words a wife. And he hadn’t answered her question about getting back at her.

      “I was denied the benefits and privileges of the five year marriage I agreed to make,” he went on in that same low, gravelly drawl that suddenly seemed more masculine growl than speech. “The deal I made wasn’t satisfied.”

      Her heart began to flutter quicker and quicker. An even worse nightmare than facing Gabe and enduring whatever awful things he might say to her, was to face him and hear this.

      “I’m sorry for that,” she said hoarsely, “but it’s—it’s not realistic to think that staying married for another five years will satisfy anything.”

      “Have you made plans with another man?”

      She couldn’t help the flush of heat that surged into her face. “Of course not.”

      “So the man your mother chose for you didn’t make it past dinner?”

      The flush of heat suddenly became a scorching mask and the guilt she already felt about that subject bore down more heavily. “If you know about him, then you know there was nothing but dinner. Ever. And there were two other couples present.”

      Lainey couldn’t bear the stern gaze that stared fixedly into hers as if trying to see the truth, but she didn’t dare look away. She should rail at him for hiring an investigator to spy on her, but after what she’d done to shut him so completely out of her life, she could hardly blame him.

      Thank God she’d done nothing that could be considered unfaithful, but the fact that Gabe had known about it deepened her shame. She’d never been romantically attracted to the man her mother had coerced her into having dinner with, and she’d felt so guilty about that one time that she’d never let Sondra maneuver her into another date with anyone else.

      “I shouldn’t have gone out with anyone for any reason,” she admitted quietly. “I apologize for that, too.”

      “So you’d have no distractions while you live up to your vows?”

      Lainey stared at him helplessly. As intense as her crush on Gabe had once been, he’d been mostly a stranger to her. And now he was not only still a stranger,