The Soon-To-Be-Disinherited Wife. Jennifer Greene

marriage had healed up. Caroline had told me more than once that they were happier than they’d ever been.”

      “That’s how it looked to everyone. They’ve been like newlyweds in public. I’m assuming someone told you that he’s gone right now. A three- or four-week trip to China, I think someone said. But Caroline never said anything about any trouble since they reconciled.”

      “Griff always traveled. I thought that was one of the problems between them originally—all his time away from her, overseas.” Garrett gulped down another dry bite of sandwich. “I don’t think he’s been gone like this in a while, though. And it’s really rare that he couldn’t be reached by phone.”

      “I’m sure he’ll get here as fast as he can.”

      “Right now the only question that matters is why’d she do this? What could possibly have been so wrong that she’d consider taking her own life?” Garrett bunched up his paper plate and napkin. “If somebody hurt her, I’ll find out. Believe me. But right now I don’t have the first clue what could have been so bad that she felt driven to do this.”

      It wasn’t a pretty picture, Garrett confronting someone who’d hurt his sister. Emma thought his lean build, elegant suit and urban appearance were misleading. If she were stuck in an alley with a muscle-bound guy versus Garrett, she’d take Garrett anytime. His backbone had always been steel, his character too stubborn to ever back down—even when he should.

      “She hasn’t been confiding in anyone,” Emma said. “We’ve all asked each other. Everyone wants to help and feels badly. But maybe she’ll start talking now that you’re home.” She hesitated. “I don’t want to say anything negative about your parents, but it’s been pretty obvious that she hasn’t wanted to see them or say anything to them.”

      “No surprise there.”

      He didn’t say more on that subject, but he didn’t have to. Emma knew his parents. His Keatings were similar to her Dearborns. Both families had serious money. Both families push-pulled their offspring to play the dynasty game by their rules.

      Garrett had never been sucked in. Not the way Emma knew she had. But she’d stayed single, fought all her parents’ efforts to marry her off, as a way of drawing the line on their control. They’d ardently wanted her to marry into a “good family,” have offspring to carry on the Dearborn legacy.

      Sometimes Emma felt as if Eastwick had a bit in common with medieval castle life. The wealthy crowd she’d grown up with had believed that sex was a commodity, that a “smart” woman made a good match, using any and all tools she had. The women in her pack knew early on that a woman was expected to sexually please a man. It was part of the job—a woman’s job to attract and keep the alpha guys in the pack.

      Maybe that was the real world. That’s what people kept telling her. So many people seemed to think that women prettied up relationships by calling them “love,” when reality was survival, and survival for a woman meant nailing the best provider. Sex was a powerful tool for a woman to use to catch the best guy. Friends thought of Emma as naive for believing otherwise. She never argued with them. She just didn’t want to live that way. Maybe there was no fairy tale, but she preferred to live alone than invite a sexual relationship where her performance came with a grade attached.

      “What?” Garrett asked her. “From the expression on your face, something’s on your mind.”

      She shook her head with a wry smile. Heaven knew why her mind had curved down that road, except that she’d wanted to give Garrett a chance to finish his mini meal in peace. And being with him had provoked memories of that wild, crazy excitement she’d felt with him—nothing to do with grading cards or skills or sex being a commodity. She’d just fiercely wanted him with all her young seventeen-year-old body. But that was a goofy thought path, especially for this moment, when he had so many serious things on his mind. “Where are you staying while you’re home?” she asked him.

      “With the parents.” He sighed. “To be honest, staying there’s my last choice in the universe. But at least to start with, I need to get a better picture of what’s going on with my sister. They may not be close to Caroline emotionally, but I’m still hoping they have some clue.”

      “It just won’t be restful staying with them?”

      “To say the least.” He turned, and it was as if he temporarily forgot all his family worries. Not for long but just for that moment, he looked at her face framed in moonlight, her quiet smile. And suddenly there just seemed the two of them alone in their own private universe. “I’m glad I ran into you.”

      So blunt. So like him. “Likewise. It’s good to see you again. Not under these circumstances, but—”

      “I’ve thought of you. So many times.” He never dropped his eyes. “I know I hurt you, Emma.”

      “Yup. You did. But there’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then. We were both young.”

      “I cared. In fact, I loved you.” Again his gaze seemed to sweep her face, her hair, her mouth. All of her. “Don’t think I didn’t. It was never that I wanted to leave you, wanted to hurt you. I was just frustrated and angry at the life I felt forced into here, always at war with my father. I couldn’t stay here.”

      “I understood then and now, Garrett. The hurt’s long healed, honestly.” She smiled. “To tell you the truth, I think of you, too. Once the hurt healed…they were just good memories. Nothing like that first feeling of being love, is there? It’s the kind of memory you can take out on a rainy day and just…enjoy.”

      “Trust a woman to soften it up. What I remember was a sexual high so damned painful I’m positive I came close to dying from it. All those Friday nights we took a blanket to Silver Point…Remember that? I’d go home and spend the rest of the night in a cold shower.”

      She laughed. “Yeah, right.”

      He was smiling, yet his eyebrows suddenly lifted in a curious expression. “You don’t believe me?”

      “I believe you’re full of the devil, no different than you always were.” She was a long way from the shy teenager who blushed when a guy tried a little flirting. But somehow the look in Garrett’s eyes—the electric energy of being with him again—was putting a hot sizzle in her pulse. She was too physically aware of him for comfort. Quickly, competently, she steered him away from personal topics.

      It worked. In fact, it more than worked. As the minutes passed, she felt relieved they’d found a way to talk naturally together again. He obviously needed and wanted to get back to his sister, but these few moments with some fresh air and a little food had eased the taut strain in his expression. He’d so clearly needed to climb off the anxiety train for a bit. So she told him about the current scandal in town—Bunny Baldwin’s death, the infamous missing diaries, everyone worrying about what secrets Bunny had known, Jack Cartright being blackmailed and his marrying Lily and how much happiness had come out of that horrible mess in the long run….

      She didn’t talk long, just enough to fill him in on the town’s personalities. The instant he started to look restless, she stood up, and then swiftly so did he.

      “I know,” she said without his having to speak up. “You’re going back to Caroline. And I need to head home and get some sleep.”

      “I do need to get back upstairs. But for all this catching up, I still didn’t take the chance to ask anything about you.” Quick as a sliver, he asked, “So—you aren’t still on the loose, are you? You in a good marriage?”

      “I’m engaged.” The instant the words came out of her mouth, she felt a flush of guilt because, damn, she hadn’t thought of Reed in hours now. Not that she’d done anything wrong. She hadn’t touched Garrett or kissed him or done anything suggestive in any way.

      Yet the instant she said engaged, his expression immediately changed. It wasn’t as if he stopped smiling at her, but…the lights went off. He quickly closed a door on possibilities that,