The Texas Valentine Twins. Cathy Thacker Gillen

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СКАЧАТЬ you underage?” Gannon asked.

      Adelaide admitted reluctantly, “We were both eighteen. No parental permission was required.”

      “Incapacitated in some way?” Claire queried. “Mentally, emotionally? Either of you intoxicated or high?”

      Wyatt and Adelaide shook their heads. “We knew what we were doing,” he said.

      In that sense, maybe, Adelaide thought, recalling how immature they had been. They hadn’t had any idea what it really meant to be married. Since both of them had remained single, they probably still didn’t know.

      Gannon exhaled roughly. “Then you’re going to have to claim fraud.”

      “I’m not doing that,” Adelaide cut in. Not with her family’s reputation.

      “Well, don’t look at me. I’m not the one who changed my mind and backed out,” Wyatt said.

      Claire lifted a hand and intervened gently. “Why don’t you tell us what happened?”

      Adelaide flushed. Reluctant to discuss how foolishly romantic she had been, when they had set out for Vegas, after both had fought with their parents about the too-serious nature of their relationship. How determined they were to do something to show everyone, only to find out how scary it was to truly be in over their heads.

      Adelaide drew a deep breath. “We eloped without thinking everything through.”

      Wyatt sat back in his chair, the implacable look she hated in his smoky blue eyes. “What she’s trying to say is that she got cold feet.”

      “Came to my senses,” Adelaide corrected him archly, irritated to find he still hadn’t a compassionate bone in him. When he merely lifted a brow, she continued emotionally, “You did wild and reckless things all the time, growing up, Wyatt. I didn’t.”

      He scoffed, hurt flashing across his handsome face. “Well, we sure found that out the hard way, didn’t we?”

      She knew she had disappointed him. She had disappointed herself. Though for entirely different reasons. Adelaide turned to their attorneys, explaining, “I was fine all through dinner, but when it came time to check into the hotel and consummate our union, I...” Choking up, Adelaide found herself unable to go on.

      All eyes turned to Wyatt, who recounted dryly, “She panicked. Said she loved me, she just didn’t want to be married to me, not yet.” Accusation—and resentment—rang in his low tone.

      Adelaide forced herself to ignore it, lest she too become caught up in an out-of-control emotional maelstrom. “I wanted to go home to Texas, finish our senior year of high school. And I wanted everything we had done, undone, without our families or anyone else finding out.”

      Wyatt, bless his heart, had agreed to let her have her way.

      Unlike now.

      Exhaling, he continued, “We went back to the wedding chapel and asked the justice of the peace who married us if he could pretend we had never been there. He refused. But he gave us the name of someone who could help us.”

      Adelaide remembered the relief she had felt. “So we went to the attorney’s office the next day and asked him to file an annulment.”

      “I had a rodeo to compete in that evening, in Tahoe, so I signed what the attorney told me to sign and took off, leaving Adelaide behind to wrap things up.”

      “Which I did,” Adelaide said hotly.

      Wyatt lifted a brow. “You have a canceled check to prove it?”

      His attitude was as contentious as his low, clipped tone, but she refused to take the bait. “No. I paid his fee in cash.”

      Wyatt rocked back in his chair, ran the flat of his palm beneath his jaw. Finally, he shook his head and said, “Brilliant move.”

      Resisting the urge to leap across the table and take him by the collar, Adelaide folded her arms in front of her. “I was trying not to leave more of a paper trail than we already had.”

      Wyatt narrowed his gaze at her in mute superiority. “Learned from the best, there, didn’t you?” he mocked.

      Adelaide sucked in a startled breath. “Do not compare me with my father!” she snapped, her temper getting the better of her, despite her desire to appear cool, calm and collected. “If not for me, and all the forensic accounting work I did, people still might not know where all the money from the Lockhart Foundation went!”

      An angry silence ticked out between them. Broken only by his taut reminder, “If not for your father, the foundation money might still all be there. My mother would not have been put through hell the last year.”

      Their gazes locked in an emotional battle of wills that had been years in the making. Refusing to give him a pass, even if he had been hurt and humiliated, too, she sent him a mildly rebuking look, even as the temperature between them rose to an unbearable degree. “Your mother knows I had nothing to do with any of that. So does the rest of your family.” Ignoring the perspiration gathering between her breasts, she paused to let her words sink in. Dropped her voice another compelling notch. “Why can’t you accept that, too?”

      * * *

      THE HELL OF it was, Wyatt secretly wished he could believe Adelaide Smythe was as innocent as everyone else did. He’d started to come close. And then this had happened.

      He had seen Adelaide taking advantage of his mother’s kindness and generosity, decided to investigate, just to reassure himself, and found even more corruption.

      Claire and Gannon exchanged lawyerly looks. “Let’s all calm down, shall we?” Gannon said.

      Claire nodded. “Nothing will be gained from fighting.”

      Adelaide pushed her fingers through the dark strands of her hair. It spilled over her shoulders in sexy disarray. “You’re right. Let’s just focus on getting the annulment, which should be easy—” she paused to glare at Wyatt “—since we never consummated the marriage.”

      Once again, she was a little shady on the details. “Not then,” Wyatt pointed out.

      Adelaide paled, as if suddenly realizing what he already had.

      Claire’s brow furrowed. “You’ve been together intimately in the ten years since?”

      Wyatt nodded, as another memory that had been hopelessly sexy and romantic took on a nefarious quality. “Last spring. After a destination wedding we both attended in Aspen.”

      A flush started in her chest and moved up her neck into her face. In a low, quavering voice, Adelaide admitted, “We have a penchant for making terrible mistakes whenever we’re alone together. But since we didn’t know we were married at the time, that can’t count as consummating the marriage.” She gulped. “Can it?”

      Stepping in, Gannon stated, “Actually, whether or not you slept together really doesn’t affect the marriage’s legality in the state of Texas. Hasn’t for some time.”

      Wyatt СКАЧАТЬ