Society Wives: Love or Money. Maureen Child

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СКАЧАТЬ haven’t met Delia Forrester and yet you presumed a similarity between us.”

      “You’re unalike?”

      “We are different.” She held his gaze. “Very different.”

      He thought she would say more—it was there in her eyes, a darkening of purpose, a fleeting moment of gravity—but then she made a little gesture he interpreted as forget-about-it and started walking.

      He caught up with her in two strides.

      “I’m going to take the stairs,” she said crisply. Then, when he continued at her side, she cut him a sharp look. “There’s no need for you to accompany me.”

      “I’ll see you to your car.”

      “I am valet parked. There’s no need.”

      He didn’t argue, he just kept walking, not to be difficult or perverse but to see her safely to her car. It was the right thing to do. So was letting go the subject of Delia Forrester—he would find out the differences soon enough.

      He would make up his own mind.

      While waiting for her car, they made stilted small talk about the hotel and its first-rate service and, when her Mercedes Cabriolet appeared, about the car itself. Then, before she slid into the driver’s seat, came a moment of awkwardness, as she said goodbye in a stiffly formal way.

      “Not goodbye.” Tristan dismissed the valet with a look and met her eyes over the sports car’s low door. “I will see you at the polo match. Frank said everyone will be there—I assume that includes you?”

      “Please don’t do this,” she said in a rush of entreaty. “Please don’t use this as a venue to ask questions about me.”

      “This afternoon you didn’t have any qualms. I recall you wishing me luck.”

      “This afternoon you caught me by surprise.”

      The surprise of that kiss, of each touch, of their unwanted attraction, arced between them in the tense stillness of the night. Nothing needed to be said; it was all there, in the unspoken moment. As was the root of their conflict, the part that was no surprise. “And now you’re suggesting I shouldn’t ask questions about you?”

      “I’m asking that you respect the privacy of others.” She moistened her lips, and the sweet warmth of her kiss licked through his veins again. “You said this was between you and me, but it’s not. You will hurt others, if you go around asking questions and starting rumors and drawing attention to our feud. Think about it, please. Think about doing the right thing.”

      Standing so close, Tristan felt the candor of her appeal reach out and take a grip. She’d never asked anything of him before, not so directly, not with a please that chased the memory of her taste and the scent of her hair on a wild scrambling scurry beyond his blood and his male hormones to a closely guarded place beyond.

      “I am doing the right thing,” he assured her … and reminded himself. “I’ve never doubted that.”

      For a brief instant he thought there was more, a response or another appeal, and deep in his gut he hoped for the latter. A please, Tristan that was only about them and had nothing to do with their conflict. But then she pressed her lips together and just before she slid into the driver’s seat, he glimpsed something else deep in her eyes, something that shifted like a darkening shadow.

      Whatever was going on with her, he would find out.

      Steel coated his resolve and his voice as he watched the glossy vehicle glide from beneath the hotel portico onto the street. “If you have nothing to hide, duchess, then why that appeal? What do you have to fear? And who the hell are you protecting?”

      A block away from the Marabella, Vanessa expelled a soft gust of held back breath. Finally she was able to breathe and think again—two basics she had difficulty with in Tristan’s company. And now she was functioning at something like normality, the tight, sick feeling she’d experienced earlier returned with a vengeance.

      Tonight had been a complete waste of time. Had she really thought she could sit at the same table and pretend he hadn’t turned her world on its head with his arrival and his condemnation and his hot-blooded kiss?

      “Not a kiss,” she reminded herself vehemently, and a fat lot of good that did! Rolling her shoulders and gripping the steering wheel tightly did not halt the rush of heat, either. Even now, all these hours later, she could still feel the sizzle.

      What was that about?

      The sad part was, Vanessa didn’t know. She’d never experienced anything like this before. Ever. No boyfriends, no stolen kisses, no illicit make out sessions. Nothing but work and caring for Lew and then a whole new world of opportunity through her friendship with Stuart Thorpe.

      “Why him?” She thumped the steering wheel with one fisted hand. “Why did it have to be him?”

      Tonight, unfortunately, she’d witnessed an unexpected side to her nemesis. Smiling in the moonlight, challenging her over his kissing technique, charming and at ease with Frank Forrester, showing her to her car like a gentleman.

      She growled low in her throat and thumped the wheel again.

       And what are you going to do about it, duchess?

      Hearing the silent question in his dark chocolate drawl did not help her mood of frustrated disquiet.

      “Nothing,” she muttered, but that response hung over her like a dark-shadowed indictment of her failure tonight. She shifted in her seat and reconsidered. Okay. About this unwanted attraction, she would do nothing.

      But that wasn’t her real problem …

      She still had no proof of the letter’s validity, and he believed he had grounds to steal her security and Lew’s future away from her.

      Paused at an intersection, she checked for traffic. Down the street to her left stood the offices of Cartwright and Associates, a place she’d come to know oh so well in the past two years. The place where she should have taken the news of Tristan’s arrival and allegations this afternoon.

      As Stuart’s lawyer and now hers, Jack Cartwright was one of the handful of people who knew about Lew, and right now she could do with his clear head and logical approach. She checked the dashboard clock and winced. Although Jack and his wife Lily were close friends, they were expecting their first baby in a month’s time and calling this late felt like an imposition.

      Not that she wasn’t tempted … but, no. First thing in the morning she would call and arrange a meeting. The earlier the better.

      After sleeping poorly Vanessa was up and dressed before dawn, but she managed to hold off calling the Cartwright home until seven o’clock. Then she kicked herself because Jack had gone into the office already. She exchanged small talk with Lily for all of six seconds before the other woman picked up on the strain in her voice. “Is everything all right, Vanessa?”

      “No, not really. Tristan Thorpe’s in town.” Which, really, was the sum total of her problems. “I need to talk to Jack. I’ll call him at the office.”

      “I have a better idea. СКАЧАТЬ