The Prodigal Wife. Susan Fox P.

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      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, but a stranger who would naturally feel no small amount of ill will toward her. She’d be a fool to give him a chance like that. He could make mincemeat of her.

      “I don’t think that’s what either of us really wants,” she said shakily.

      “There’s no ‘us’ in that. Just you.”

      The way he’d said “just you” somehow emphasized what he didn’t say: she’d gotten all the benefits of her father’s will—what would actually amount to several million dollars worth of benefits—without giving Gabe a single thing in exchange but trouble and public embarrassment. It was obvious he didn’t consider her offer of financial compensation to be enough to satisfy him.

      But she had to remember that everyone in their part of Texas had known that they’d married, so it followed that everyone had to have noticed that she’d never lived a moment with Gabe as his wife. And because neither of them had ever lived as hermits, the gossip about them must have been intense.

      She’d let old friendships drift to protect herself from hearing it, but Gabe had lived here knowing it was swirling around him, though she doubted anyone would have dared to repeat it to his face.

      The guilt she’d felt these last weeks was suddenly nothing compared to the guilt she felt now. Nausea rose like a tidal wave as she felt the jaws of a trap snap tighter and tighter on her conscience.

      Because she’d deprived Gabe of the marriage he’d bargained for, he was insisting that she live up to her vows and continue it. But the idea was terrifying. It wasn’t possible to have a normal marriage with him now, not after five whole years of hateful estrangement.

      “Please, Gabe,” she croaked, but he spoke almost before she’d finished saying the short syllable of his name.

      “I want heirs.”

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