View Park. Angela Winters

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      Michael stood at the edge of the great room, sizing up his wife as she snatched a glass of wine from a passing waiter. Kimberly Chase, the outsider, was the hottest woman in the room. She was always the hottest woman in the room. She still looked like a model at twenty-five, even after twins, with café au lait skin, smoldering green eyes and full lips, she was a strikingly beautiful woman by anyone’s standards and Michael’s standards were the highest.

      Kimberly didn’t come from anything close to money, a fact his mother never let him forget, but she wore it well. Very well, and Michael loved the hell out of her. (He’d been obsessed with her since the moment he laid eyes on her at that club in New York almost six years ago, when he was in his first year at Columbia Business School.) As he approached her now, he slowly wrapped his arm around her waist, taking a second to squeeze her butt.

      “You’re enjoying yourself,” he whispered into her ear before biting it. “That’s what, number three already?”

      Kimberly’s mouth curved into an unconscious smile, feeling that familiar lightning jolt run through her body from her husband’s touch. “This is how I survive Chase family weekends. I’m your wife and I live in this house, so I have to be here. Allow me what little enjoyment I can have.”

      “What has Mom done to you now?” Michael felt that the animosity between his wife and mother had lessened over the five years of their marriage, but Kimberly was never satisfied.

      “Nothing today, but I’m waiting and I don’t like your tone.”

      “What tone?”

      “That tone suggesting your mother hasn’t hated me from the first day she met me. She lives for making my life miserable.”

      Michael laughed, but quickly shut up when Kimberly glared at him. He knew her agreeing to live in his parents’ home was a sacrifice she was making out of love for him. He tried to make it better for her by giving her everything else she wanted. “Honestly, Kimberly, I think my mother has more on her mind than hating you. Besides, Leigh is coming home. Mother has her favorite punching bag back.”

      Kimberly hadn’t thought of much else. Now that Leigh was home, her inevitable clashes with Janet would give Kimberly some breathing room. Kimberly would never forget the saccharine smile on Janet’s face when she first met her. The second Michael left the room Janet threatened to destroy her if she was lying about Michael being the father of her children.

      Destroy? Kimberly had never heard someone use that word before but that was what Janet did. She destroyed anyone she didn’t like and she hated Kimberly. She hated that Michael had to marry Kimberly because in the Chase family, there were no out of wedlock children. “Bastards” was the word Janet used, but Kimberly knew Janet had no problem with children of divorce and the woman was just waiting for the day Michael would cut Kimberly loose. That day was never going to come because Kimberly knew Michael loved her and she would never, ever let him go.

      “Still,” Kimberly argued. “It’s another woman who thinks she has more claim to this sacred land than I do.”

      Michael gently touched her cheek with the back of his hand. Kimberly looked at him with love in her eyes and he knew he could convince her of anything. “Remember what I told you. We have the only grandchildren, and you’re their mother. That gives you power, so use it.” Michael planted a tender kiss on her cheek, loving the silky smooth feel of her flawless skin. “You’re a great mother. Of all she tries to throw at you, she can’t say anything about that. Use your strength.”

      Kimberly knew she had found a god among men when she met Michael Chase. Every word that came out of his mouth made her want to win, succeed and get what was hers. He encouraged her in a way that she’d had no faith men ever could. He made her feel that everything could be hers; should be hers. Her absent father, abusive brother, her pimp and every other man in her life had made her believe men like Michael didn’t exist. But he did and he was hers. Just like everything else would be as soon as…The center of attention came into her sight. Janet Chase entertaining a circle of L.A.’s best; perfect in every way.