Society Wives: Love or Money: The Bought-and-Paid-for Wife. Maureen Child

touchstone with reality. He’d needed that after the last twenty-four hours.

      Thus immersed, he picked up the buzzing phone expecting to hear his assistant’s voice, only to be disappointed.

      Delia Forrester hadn’t waited for him to call. He didn’t much care for the woman’s overly familiar manner but he accepted her invitation to join their party at Sunday’s polo match, regardless.

      After the call, his concentration was shot so he headed to the hotel’s pool. His natural inclination was to swim hard, to burn off the excess energy in his limbs and his blood and his hormones. But after a couple of hard laps he forced himself to ease off to a lazy crawl. He refused to cede control to a situation and a woman and an untenable attraction.

      Up and down the pool he loped, distracting himself by thinking about last night’s encounter with Frank Forrester, conjuring up vague memories of him and his first wife—Lyn? Linda? Lydia?—spending weekends out of the city at the Thorpe home.

      And now, for all the brightness of his conversation, Frank looked worn out. Had his father aged as badly? Had he grown frail and stooped?

      Worn out from keeping up with a young, fast, social-climbing wife when he should have been taking it easy with his life’s companion, enjoying the rewards he’d earned through decades of hard work?

      Without realizing it, Tristan had upped his tempo to a solid churning pace, driven by those thoughts and by the effort of not thinking about his father with Vanessa.

      Too young, too alive, too passionate.

      All wrong.

      He forced himself to stop churning—physically and mentally—at the end of the lap. Rolling onto his back, he kicked away from the edge and there she was, standing at the end of the pool, as if conjured straight out of his reflections.

      Or possibly not, he decided on a longer second glance.

      Dressed in a pale blue suit, with her hair pulled back and pinned up out of view, her eyes and half her face hidden behind a pair of large sunglasses, she looked older, stiffer, all polish and composure and money.

      She didn’t look happy, either, but then he’d expected as much when he decided not to leave the letter with Gloria.

      He knew he’d hear about it—and that she’d possibly come gunning for him—but he hadn’t expected her this early in the day. Not when he’d been told she had a full day of important charity committee meetings.

      Despite all that, he felt the same adrenaline spike as last night in the restaurant and this morning walking up to her door. The same, only with an added rush of heat, which didn’t thrill him. To compose himself, he swam another lap and back, forcing himself to turn his arms over—slow and unconcerned.

      Then he climbed from the pool in a long, lazy motion and collected his towel from a nearby lounger. All the while, he felt her watching him and his body’s unwelcome response undid all the good work of those relaxing last laps.

      Thank God for jumbo-size hotel towels.

      Walking back to where she stood, Tristan subjected her to the same thorough once-over. Payback, he justified. She didn’t move a muscle, even when he came to a halt much too close, and he wondered if her shoes—very proper, with heels and all to match the suit—had melted into the poolside tile.

      “A little overdressed for a dip, aren’t you?”

      A small furrow between her brows deepened. She moistened her lips, as if perhaps her mouth had all dried out. “I didn’t come here to swim.”

      “Pity. It’s the weather for it.”

      “Yes, it’s hot but—”

      “You want to get out of the sun?” Tristan inclined his head toward the nearest setting with a big shady umbrella. What a difference a day makes. Twenty-four hours ago he’d been in the business suit, knocking at her door. Now she was on his turf and he aimed to milk the reversal in power for all it was worth.

      “No.” She shook her head. “I only came for the letter. Gloria rang to tell me you’d called around but you wouldn’t leave it.”

      “I didn’t know if I should.”

      She made an annoyed sound with her tongue and teeth.

      “Last night you specifically asked that we keep this between you and me,” he reasoned.

      “Which is why you insinuated yourself into my house and interrogated my housekeeper?”

      Ah. He’d thought she mightn’t approve of that. “Gloria kindly made me tea.”

      “Did she kindly tell you what you needed to know?”

      “She told me you were tied up with meetings all day.” He allowed his gaze to drift over her charity-meeting outfit. “Yet here you are.”

      He sensed her gathering frustration, but she took a minute to glance around the surroundings and the little clusters of tourists and the discreetly hovering staff. If she’d been about to stomp on his bare foot with one of her weapon-shaped heels or to launch herself fully clothed into the pool, she resisted. Her elegantly dimpled chin came up a fraction. “I am here to fetch the letter. Do you have it or don’t you?”

      “I have it, although—” he patted his hips and chest where he might have found pockets, had he been wearing clothes “—not on me.”

      Despite the dark Jackie O.-size shades, he tracked the shift of her gaze as she followed his hands down his torso. Then, as if suddenly aware of what she was doing and where she was looking, her head snapped up. “I didn’t mean on you. Is it in your room?”

      “It is. You want to come up and get it?”

      “No,” she replied primly. “I would like you to go up and get it. I will wait in the lounge.”

      Vanessa didn’t give him a chance to bait her further. She turned smartly on her heel and walked away. Yes, he tracked her departure all the way across the long terrace. Yes, that filled her sensory memory with images of his bare tanned length wet and glistening from the pool. Of those muscles flexing and shifting as he toweled himself off. Of the blatant male beauty of a strong toned abdomen, of dark hair sprinkled across his chest and trailing down his midline and disappearing into his brief swimming trunks.

      Heat flared in her skin then shivered through her flesh as she crossed from the wicked midafternoon sunshine into the cool shade of the hotel interior. She chose a secluded seat away from the terrace windows and surreptitiously fanned her face while she waited.

      And waited.

      She ordered an iced water and checked her watch. And realized the waiting and waiting had actually been for little more than five minutes. Time, it seemed, had taken on a strange elongated dimension since she opened the door exactly twenty-four hours ago.

      In that time so little had happened and yet so much had changed. None of it made sense … except, possibly, the buff body. He’d been an elite athlete, after all, and any woman with functional eyesight would have found herself admiring those tight muscles.

      It wasn’t personal.

      Vanessa exhaled through her nose, exasperated with herself. She didn’t check her watch again.

      Assuming he showered and dressed, he could be five or ten minutes or more. And although she hoped he did shower and dress, she didn’t want to think about him showering and dressing.

      To pass the time she scoped the room, wincing when she noticed Vern and Liz Kramer at a table not too far away. Vern and Stuart went way back. While she liked the Kramers, she didn’t want to deal with another introduction and everything-is-fine conversation like last night’s episode with Frank. She just wanted to get the letter and get out of here.

      The letter.

      Another shiver feathered over her skin with the realization of a purpose and an anxiety forgotten