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Society Wives: Love or Money: The Bought-and-Paid-for Wife
Maureen Child

Katherine Garbera

Bronwyn Jameson


The Bought-and-Paid-for Wife Tristan Thorpe stood between Vanessa and the inheritance she desperately needed. He saw her as his late father’s trophy wife and judged her accordingly – until a passionate argument suddenly turned into a soul-burning kiss… The Once-a-Mistress WifeMary Duvall came back to claim her inheritance – not to rekindle a romantic relationship with millionaire Kane Brentwood! Years ago, she’d been the English lord’s mistress, but he’d married another woman!The Part-Time WifeAbby realised her husband, Luke Talbot, was leading a double life. His secrets were forcing them apart. How could she be married to him, sleep in his arms and not know who he truly was?










Society Wives: Love or Money

The Bought-and-Paid-for Wife Bronwyn Jameson

The Once-a-Mistress Wife Katherine Garbera

The Part-Time Wife Maureen Child






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


The Bought-and-Paid-for Wife Bronwyn Jameson


DEAR READER,

When I was asked if I would like to participate in SECRET LIVES OF SOCIETY WIVES, I jumped in with an enthusiastic, “Yes, please.” Just hearing the series name conjured up all kinds of juicy, scandalous premises … not to mention the “it” TV show at the time. The invitation came, you see, midway through the first season of Desperate Housewives, and I’m a big fan.

Now, I live a long way—ten thousand miles, give or take—from Connecticut and a similar distance from the glamorous, high-society lifestyle this series embodies. But it was no hardship researching and inventing my little piece of Eastwick, Connecticut. From Vanessa’s home to the polo charity benefit to the country club wedding, it was a Bentley-load of fun!

As for my hero … I have a New York friend to thank for Tristan. Jen’s offhand comment about sexy Australian footballers in their short shorts and great legs inspired me to create this background for my rugged, difficult, take-no-prisoners alpha. I hope you enjoy him as much as Vanessa does!

Cheers,

Bronwyn Jameson




About the Author


BRONWYN JAMESON spent much of her childhood with her head buried in a book. As a teenager, she discovered romance novels, and it was only a matter of time before she turned her love of reading them into a love of writing them. Bronwyn shares an idyllic piece of the Australian farming heartland with her husband and three sons, a thousand sheep, a dozen horses, assorted wildlife and one kelpie dog. She still chooses to spend her limited downtime with a good book. Bronwyn loves to hear from readers. Write to her at bronwyn@bronwynjameson. com.


For all my readers, with a special mention

to those who’ve written to me. I treasure

every note and letter and card.

And to Mrs White, the number one

advocate for my own little “Lew.”

Thank you, K.




One


He’d seen pictures. He’d expected beautiful. After all, when a man chooses a trophy wife, he wants one other men will covet. But Tristan Thorpe hadn’t appreciated the extent of that beauty—or its powerful clout—until the front door of the Connecticut colonial opened in a rush and she was there, five-and-a-bit feet of breathtaking impact.

Vanessa Thorpe. His father’s widow. The enemy.

In every one of those society diary pictures she looked as glossy and polished as a trophy prize should … which had left Tristan speculating over how much was real—the platinum hair? the full lips? the petite but perfectly curved body?—and how much came courtesy of his father’s wealth.

He hadn’t wondered about the sparklers at her throat and in her ears. Those, he knew, were real. Unlike her other multi-faceted assets, the diamonds appeared on the listed valuations of Stuart Thorpe’s estate.

But here, now, seeing her in the flesh for the first time, Tristan didn’t notice anything fake. All he saw was the very real sparkle in her silvery-green eyes and the smile. Warmer than the August sun at his back now that the rain had cleared, it lit her whole face with pleasure and licked his body with instant male appreciation.

That hot shot of hormones lasted all of a second, which was as long as it took for shock to freeze the smile on her perfect pink lips.

“It’s … you.”

Her whispered gasp came coated with dismay and, although she didn’t move, Tristan saw the recoil in her expression. She wanted to back away. Hell, she probably wanted to slam the door in his face, and a perverse part of him wished she would give it a go. The long flight from Australia and the snarled afternoon traffic following a heavy rainstorm had him edgy enough to enjoy that kind of confrontation.

Logic, however, was Tristan Thorpe’s master and it cautioned him to remain cool. “Sorry to disappoint you, duchess.” And because he wasn’t the least bit sorry, he smiled, as slow and mocking as his drawled greeting. “Obviously, you were expecting someone else.”

“Obviously.”

Tristan arched an eyebrow. “Didn’t you say I was welcome here any time?”

“I don’t recall—”

“Two years ago,” he reminded her. After her husband’s death. Seeing as she had to call his estranged family on the other side of the world to inform them of his passing, why not extend her largesse? An ex-waitress with expectations of a cool hundred million in inheritance could afford to appear generous.

Right now she didn’t look so generous. In fact she looked downright inhospitable. “Why are you here, Tristan? The court date isn’t until next month.”

“If it’s even necessary.”

Surprise and suspicion narrowed her eyes. “Have you changed your mind? Are you dropping your contest of the will?”

“Not a chance.”

“Then what do you want?”

“There’s been a new development.” Tristan paused, savoring the moment. He’d flown nearly ten thousand miles for this. He wanted to drag it out, to see her flail, before he brought her down. “I think you’ll change your mind about keeping that court date.”

For a second she stared at him, her expression revealing nothing but annoyance. Behind her, somewhere within the mansion’s vast interior, a phone started to ring. He saw her momentary distraction, a glance, a tightening of her lips, before she spoke.

“If this is another of your attempts to obstruct execution of Stuart’s will—” the hostility in her eyes and her voice confirmed that’s exactly what she thought “—please take it to my lawyer, the same as you’ve done with every other new development the past two years. Nothing has changed in that regard. Now, if you’ll excuse me …”

Oh, no. No way would he be dismissed. Not with that snooty voice, not with that imperious lift of her perfect little chin.

Tristan didn’t stop to consider propriety or good manners. To prevent her closing the door on him, he stepped forward. To halt her leaving, he reached out and caught her by the arm.

The bare arm, he realized as the shock of her warm and female softness shot through his system.

Vaguely, beneath that purr of awareness, he felt her stillness and heard the hitch of her breath. Shock, no doubt, that he’d dare lay a hand on her.

“You don’t want to close that door on me.” His voice sounded rough, a deep growl in the tense silence. And he realized that the shrill ringing of the telephone had stopped, whether because someone had picked up or the caller had quit, he didn’t know and couldn’t care. “You don’t want me taking this public.”

“No?”

“If you’re smart—” And she was. They might have dealt with each other largely through lawyers, but he’d never underestimated the smarts behind her platinum blond looks “—you’ll keep this between you and me.”

Their eyes clashed with raw antagonism and something else. The same something that still buzzed through his system and tightened his gut. The same something that made him release his grip on her arm without breaking eye contact, even when he heard the rubbery squelch of rapidly approaching sneakers on the foyer’s marble floor.

“Take the call if you need,” he said. “I can wait.”

The owner of the sneakers stopped and cleared her throat and Tristan’s attention switched to a trim middle-aged woman, even shorter than Vanessa. Despite her casual jeans and T-shirt attire, he pegged her as the housekeeper. Perhaps because of the old-fashioned feather duster poking out from under one arm.

“Sorry to interrupt.” Even though she addressed her boss, the woman’s gaze flicked over Tristan, not curious, not nervous, but sizing him up. The dislike in her expression suggested she recognized him. “Andy needs to speak to you.”

“Thank you, Gloria. I’ll take it in the library.”

“And your … guest?”

The pause was deliberate. He got the distinct impression that, like her employer, she would relish tossing the guest out on his backside. And then turning the dogs on him.

“Show him to the sitting room.”

“No need.” Tristan’s gaze shifted to Vanessa. “I lived here for twelve years. I can find my own way.”

That registered like a slap of shock in her rain-on-water eyes but she didn’t comment. Instead she inclined her head and played the gracious hostess. “Can Gloria bring you tea? Or a cold drink?”

“Would that be safe?”

The housekeeper made a sound that fell midway between a snort and a laugh. Her boss, however, didn’t appear to appreciate his gibe. Her lips compressed into a tight line. “I won’t keep you long.”

“Don’t hurry on my account.”

She paused, just long enough to cast him a long, frosty look over one shoulder. “Believe me. I never do anything on your account, Tristan.”

Uttered with the perfect mix of scorn and indifference, it was a killer closing line—one he would have paid with a salute of laughter at another time, in another place. With another adversary. But this was Vanessa Thorpe and she was already halfway across the foyer, her head bent in earnest conversation with her employee.

He couldn’t distinguish words, but the low lilt of her voice packed the same impact as her million-watt smile.

It created the same sting of heat as when he’d gripped her arm … and that heat still prickled in the palm of his hand. Flexing his fingers helped. Allowing his gaze to drop below her shoulders didn’t.

She wore a little dress—a sundress, he supposed, although the milk-pale skin it revealed hadn’t seen much sun. Very little skin lay bare; this was not a provocative dress. The silky material didn’t cling as much as flow with the subtle curves of her body. It was classy, expensive and feminine. The kind of dress that whispered woman to every red-blooded male cell he owned.

At the door to the library, she gave final instructions to the housekeeper who hurried off. To fix his tea, with a side of lemon, milk and arsenic, he presumed.

For a long moment the only sound was the retreating squeak of rubber soles and then, as if she felt the touch of his gaze or the cynical whisper of his thoughts, Vanessa pivoted on the heel of one of her delicate sandals. The skirt flared out from her legs, revealing a hint of bare thigh.

Making his skin prickle with renewed heat.

Their eyes met, clashed, held, and he saw a flash of something in her face, quicksilver fast. Then it and she were gone, from the room but not from his blood.

Damn it to blazes, he could not be attracted to her. He would not allow it.

With a growl of aggravation, he shut his eyes and rubbed the back of his neck. Twenty-six hours he’d been traveling. Longer from when he left his Northern Beaches’ home for the airport in Sydney’s south end.

He was tired and he was wired, running on adrenaline and fixation on his goal.

How could he believe anything he felt right now? How could he trust anything in the turmoil of emotions elicited by his return to Eastwick, Connecticut? To this, the home where he’d grown up, where he’d felt cherished and secure, only to have that comfort blanket yanked from under his adolescent feet without any warning.

Guess what, darling? We’re going to live in Australia. You and your sisters and your mother. Won’t that be exciting?

Twenty years later he was back and his heightened responses—the heat, the bitterness—weren’t all about Vanessa Thorpe.

He expelled a long breath and forced himself to move farther inside.

She’d changed things, of course. The colors, the furnishings, the mood. His footsteps echoed in the cavernous foyer, soaring to the two-story ceiling and bouncing off walls painted in a medley of pale blues. Where he remembered the warmth of a childhood home, now he felt nothing but an outsider’s detachment.

Ignoring the tight sensation in his gut, he executed a slow three-sixty and took in the matched mahogany hall stand and side table, the pair of watercolor seascapes, the vase of long-stemmed blooms. The place was as perfectly put together as Vanessa Thorpe, as carefully executed as had been her plan to snare a multimillionaire three times her age.

For two years Tristan had fought the will that gave her everything bar a token bequest to him, Stuart Thorpe’s only child, a deliberate act to show he’d chosen wife over son as his beneficiary. Tristan had filed motion after motion while he searched for a loophole, an angle, a reason.

He’d never doubted that he would win. He always did.

Finally, from out of the blue, he’d caught his lucky break. An anonymous allegation contradicting what his legal team had learned about the young widow. Initially, all they’d heard was good—Saint Vanessa with all her charity committees and voluntary work and her unstinting devotion to an ailing husband.

But a second round of discreet inquiries had revealed another slant on Vanessa Thorpe. No solid evidence, but enough rumors from enough different sources to point toward the smoke of a secretly guarded fire. Evidence would not be easily attained two years after the fact but it might not prove necessary.

He was banking on an admission of guilt to close this thing off, granting his mother all that was rightfully hers. Winning would not make up for her life’s disappointments and unhappiness, but it would serve to reverse the gross injustice of her divorce settlement.

Twenty years late but it would redress the balance. It was just and fair. And at long last, it would set things right in Tristan’s mind.

Vanessa put down the receiver and slumped over the library desk, weak with relief. Plans had changed. Andy would not be arriving at the door any minute, making her meeting with Tristan Thorpe even more difficult than it promised to be.

And she knew, from experience, that anything involving Tristan would prove more difficult than it needed to be.

Time after time he’d proven that, obstructing the execution of probate at every turn, refusing each effort to compromise, threatening to never give up until he had his due. All because he’d cast one look at her age, another at her background and thought Hello, gold digger.

Vanessa knew plenty about narrow-minded bigots, but still she’d given this one time to reassess. She’d called, she’d extended that invitation to visit, she’d given him every opportunity to take a fair settlement from the estate. She’d thought he deserved it, even though Stuart had decided otherwise.

But Tristan remained inflexible. A greedy, heartless brute and bully. Too bad she refused to be intimidated.

Reflexively she lifted a hand to rub at her arm. She hated that his touch had left a remnant warmth, that she’d felt the same heat from eyes the changeable blue of summer on the Sound. From the depth of his dark drawl and the scent of rain on his clothes and the contrast between civilized suit and uncivilized—

An abrupt knock at the library door brought her head up with a guilty start. But it was only Gloria, her brow puckered with concern. “Is everything all right, hon? Do you need to go out? Because if you do, I can deal with himself.”

The last was issued with a sniff of disdain that made Vanessa smile. For a brief second she considered taking that option, mostly because it would tick him off. But she needed to find out what he wanted and why he’d felt a need to deliver his latest pain-in-the-butt objection in person.

Not that she believed he’d discovered anything new. At least, nothing that could influence the estate distribution.

“Everything’s fine, thanks. Andy’s had to cancel our trip to the city but that’s turned out to be a blessing. As for himself—” she said it with a mocking smile as she rose to her feet “—I can handle him.”

“I know you’re plenty tough, but he’s a big one.”

“The bigger they are …”

Gloria harrumphed. “You better make sure he doesn’t break anything valuable when he falls. And if he does fix on making trouble, I’m here.”

“No,” Vanessa said, getting serious. “You will not be here because your working day finished thirty minutes ago. Now, go home and fuss over your Bennie. As soon as I’m done with our guest, I’m heading up to Lexford anyway.”

“Is everything all right up there? Is L—”

“Everything’s fine,” she repeated. And because she didn’t want to extend the conversation by fielding further queries, she put a firm hand on Gloria’s shoulder and propelled her toward the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Now, shoo.”

Wanting a glass of water before facing the dreaded enemy, Vanessa headed to the kitchen … and stumbled upon him en route—not in the formal sitting room as instructed, but in the keeping room.

No, no, no. Her heart beat fast with agitation. This was her place. The only room decorated with her things. The only room small enough and cozy enough and informal enough to relax in with a good book or to visit with friends.

Tristan Thorpe did not fit anywhere in that picture. Not the friends bit, and definitely not the small and cozy part. He’d made his mark as a pro football player in Australia, and she could see why he’d been such a forceful presence on the field. It wasn’t only his height, broad-shouldered build and wide male stance. He also exuded an aura of purpose and determination, a hard edge that his tailored suit and expensive grooming could not disguise.

Even standing with his back to the door, without the full-on impact of his intense blue gaze and the decisive set of his strong-boned face, he created an uneasy awareness in Vanessa’s flesh. She wasn’t used to seeing a man in her house, especially one this blatantly male.

But he’s here, she told herself. He is what he is. Deal with it.

That pragmatic mantra had pulled her through a lot in twenty-nine years—more difficulties of more importance than Tristan. Most of them had been solved by her godsend marriage to Stuart and she could not afford to lose that resolution. Not now; not ever.

She started into the room and at the sound of her first footfall, his head came up. A thousand nerves jumped to life as he swung around to face her. She lifted her chin an inch higher. Straightened her shoulders and fixed her face with the cool, polite expression that had gotten her through the most terrifying of social events.

Let him call her duchess. She didn’t care.

And then she noticed what had held his attention—what he now held delicately balanced in his big hands—and her heart lurched with I-do-care anxiety. It was the Girl with Flowers, the most treasured in her collection of Lladro figurines.

That fretfulness must have registered in her expression because he regarded her narrowly. “Bad news?”

Vanessa knew he referred to the phone call, but she nodded toward the figurine. “Only if you drop that.”

Heart in mouth she watched him turn it over in his hands, first one way and then the other. As a football player he’d been magic with his hands, according to Stuart. But magic or not, she didn’t want Tristan’s hands on her things. She didn’t want to look at them a week or a month or a year from now, and remember this man in her home.

As much as she wanted to keep her distance, she couldn’t help herself. She had to cross the room and take the statuette from his hands.

“When I mentioned bad news, I meant the phone call.”

The brush of their fingers unsettled Vanessa more than she’d anticipated. She felt the fine tremor in her hand and prayed he didn’t hear the telltale rattle as she put the figurine down.

“There’s no bad news,” she said, recovering her poise. She indicated a wingback chair with one hand. “Would you like to sit?”

“I’m comfortable standing.”

Leaning against a cabinet with the heels of his hands resting on its edge, he looked at ease. Except the tightness around the corners of his mouth and the tick of a muscle in his jaw gave him away. Not to mention the intentness of the sharp blue gaze fixed on her face.

Like a lion, she decided, lolling in the grass of the veldt, but with every muscle coiled as he waited for the chance to pounce. Paint her pelt black and white and call her zebra, because she was the prey.

The vividness of that mental image created a shiver up her spine, but she snapped straight in automatic reflex. Do not let the enemy see your fear. It was a lesson she’d learned as a child, one she’d tried to instill into her younger brother, Lew.

One she’d used often in her new life, adapting to the scrutiny of Eastwick society.

As much as she wanted to put distance between herself and the enemy, she stood her ground and met his unsettling gaze. “Would you care to tell me about this new development? Because I can’t think of a thing that would make any difference to your claim on Stuart’s estate.”

“You’re aware of every letter in that will, Vanessa. Surely you’ve worked this out.”

“You’ve tried to obstruct every letter of that will. I can’t believe there’s one you missed!”

“We didn’t miss this one, duchess. You were just clever enough to beat us … then.”

Vanessa huffed out a breath. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Stop playing games, Tristan. I don’t have the time or the patience.”

For a long moment he didn’t respond, although she realized—belatedly—that he no longer lounged against the cabinet. He’d straightened, closing down the gap between them. But she refused to ask for space. She refused to acknowledge that his proximity bothered her.

“Is he the same one?”

She blinked, baffled by his question. “Who?”

“The man you were expecting this afternoon. The one who put that smile on your face when you answered the door. The one who called.”

Was he crazy? “The same what? What are you talking about?”

“I’m asking if this man—Andy, isn’t it?—is the one who’s going to cost you a hundred million dollars.”

Vanessa’s heart seized with shock and a terrible realization.

“Well?” he asked, not giving her a chance to recover, to respond. “Is he the man you were sleeping with while you were married to my father?”




Two


Oh My. Lord. He was talking about the adultery clause. The one left over from Stuart’s first marriage, to Tristan’s mother.

When Tristan had signaled his intention to challenge the will, her lawyer, Jack Cartwright, had gone over every clause with painstaking care, making sure Vanessa understood and that he wouldn’t receive any nasty surprises from the opposing attorney.

She’d given that clause no more thought. She had no reason to. But now Tristan thought she’d had a lover … that she still had a lover.

That comprehension took a moment to sink in, and then she couldn’t prevent her shock from bubbling into laughter.

“You think this is funny?”

“I think,” she said, recovering, “this is ludicrous. Where would you get such an idea?”

“My lawyer’s asked around. There are rumors.”

She stared at him in disbelief. “After almost two years of this dispute, you’ve decided to invent rumors?”

“I didn’t invent anything.”

“No? Then where did these rumors suddenly sprout from?”

He took a second to answer, just long enough for Vanessa to note that the muscle still ticked in his jaw. “I received a letter.”

“From?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes, it does,” she fired back at him, her earlier disbelief growing indignant. “It matters that someone is slandering me.”

He regarded her in silence, a long taut moment that fanned Vanessa’s gathering fury.

“I’m giving you the chance to deal with me privately, here and now,” he said finally, his voice low and even. “Or would you prefer to take this to court? Would you like to answer all the questions about who and where and how often under oath? Would you like all your society friends to hear—”

“You bastard. Don’t you dare even think about spreading your lies.”

“Not lies.” Something glinted, brief and dangerous in his eyes. “I intend to dig deep, Vanessa, if that’s what it takes to discover all your dirty little secrets. I will find every truth about you. Every last detail.”

Vanessa’s head whirled with the implications of his threat. She had to get away from him, to cool down, to think, but when she tried to escape he blocked her exit. And when she attempted to stare him down, he shifted closer, hemming her into the corner where she couldn’t move without touching him.

Her resentment rose in a thick, choking wave. She wanted to sound icy, imperious, but instead her voice quivered with rage. “You start by turning up at my home uninvited. You manhandle me. You threaten me with your nasty lies. And now you’re resorting to physical intimidation. I can hardly wait to see what you try next.”

Their eyes clashed in a lightning bolt that was eight parts antagonism, two parts challenge. She knew, a split second before he moved, before his hands came up to trap her against the wall, that the two parts challenge was two parts too much. And still she couldn’t back down, even when his gaze dropped to her lips and caused a slow sweet ripple in her blood. Even when he muttered something low and unintelligible—perhaps an oath, perhaps a warning—beneath his breath.

Then his mouth descended to hers, catching her gasp of indignation.

For a second she was too stunned by the sensation of his lips pressed against hers to react. Everything was new, untried, unfamiliar. The bold presence of his mouth, the rough texture of his skin, the elemental taste of rain and sun and man.

Everything was unexpected except the electric charge that flushed through her skin and tightened her breasts. That was the same as when he’d touched her, the same as when he’d watched her walk away, the same as when she’d turned at the library door and caught him staring.

She heard the accelerated thud of her heartbeat and scrambled to compose herself, to reject that unwanted response. But then he shifted his weight slightly and she felt the brush of his jacket against her bare arm. For some reason that slide of body-warmed fabric seemed more intimate than the kiss itself, and the effect shimmered through her skin like liquid silk.

The hands she’d raised to shove him away flattened against his chest and the slow beat of his heart resonated into her palms. With a shock she realized that she wasn’t only touching him but kissing him back, just now, for one split second. Oh, no. A thousand times no. Her eyes jolted open, wide and appalled, as she pushed with renewed purpose.

His mouth stilled for one measured second before he let her go. The message was clear. He’d instigated this. He was ending it. Damn him. And damn her traitorous body for reacting to whatever weird male-female chemistry was going on between them.

Red-hot anger hazed her vision and she lashed out without conscious thought. He dodged her easily, catching her arm before she came close to landing a blow. And that only infuriated her more. She wrenched at her captured arm and the jerky action caught the Lladro Girl with Flowers she’d set down on the cabinet.

In slow motion she saw the delicate figurine start to topple but she couldn’t move fast enough. The sound of its shattering impact on the marble floor filled the silence for several long brittle seconds. Vanessa pressed the back of one trembling hand to her mouth, as if that might silence the anguished cry deep inside her.

But when she started to duck down, he intercepted her, his hand on her arm holding her steady. “Leave it. It’s only an ornament.”

An ornament, yes, but this one was a gift from her childhood—a symbol of where she’d come from and all she’d dreamed of leaving behind.

But only a symbol, her pragmatic side reminded her. She’d had to grow up too practical for dreams and symbolism. This incident signified only one thing: she’d allowed Tristan Thorpe to cut through her cool, to upset her enough that she’d lashed out in temper.

And she would eat dirt before she gave him the satisfaction of knowing how deeply he’d affected her.

“Are you all right?”

The softened edge to his voice caught her off guard, but she shrugged that aside along with his touch. He was probably worried that she’d start weeping and wailing. Or that she’d turn and throw some more of her ornaments at his infuriating head.

No doubt it was as hard and as cold as the marble tiles underfoot.

Gathering the shards of her poise, she turned and met his eyes. “I will be fine once you get out of my house.”

The concern she’d detected in his voice turned steel-hard. The muscle she’d noted earlier jumped in his jaw again. “You enjoy your house while you can, duchess.”

“Meaning?”

“It won’t be yours once I prove your adultery. Not the house, not any of these pretty things you’re so concerned about breaking. All bought and paid for with Thorpe money.”

“Good luck with that,” she said coldly, while the anger resurged with new fervor. She had to get out of here before she did start hurling things at him, if only to show how little they mattered. “If you’ll excuse me, I have another appointment. If you have anything else to say, please say it through my lawyer.”

“That’s it?”

“Except for one last thing … Please close the door on your way out.”

Tristan hadn’t planned on following her. After closing the front door, he’d been intent on getting to one place only—his attorney’s office in Stamford. He had a letter to deliver. He had instructions to employ the best investigator—a team of them, if necessary—to follow up every rumor about her secret assignations, to find this mystery man whatever the cost.

Even though he’d prodded her about seeing the same man today, he didn’t believe she would be foolish enough to flaunt her lover so openly. Not when she stood to lose everything she’d set her cap at when she had married the old man.

With all his focus trained on what she’d said and not said, on what he’d done and wished he hadn’t, Tristan drove straight through the intersection of White Birch Lane and Beauford when he should have turned right. Half a mile farther on he realized his error and pulled over. Waiting for a gap in the traffic, he beat himself up about missing the turn. And while he was at it, he beat himself up some more for making such a hash of his first meeting with Vanessa Thorpe.

Sure she provoked him. Everything about her had needled him long before he came face-to-face with her kick-gut beauty. But did he have to react to every goading statement, every challenging eye-meet, every disdainful lift of her chin?

Did he have to kiss her?

The hell of it was he didn’t remember making a choice. One second they were going at it, biting verbal chunks out of each other’s hides, the next he had her backed against the wall tasting the provocation of her lush lips. And the hell of that was how swiftly her taste had aroused his hunger.

He’d wanted so much more than one quick bite. His hands had itched to touch that distracting dip in her chin, to feel the creamy softness of her skin, to pull her tight against his body.

He could blame the long day, his lack of sleep, the edgy turmoil of returning to Eastwick, but in the end he could only hold himself responsible. He’d let her get to him.

He wouldn’t make that mistake again.

The flow of traffic eased and he checked his mirror just as a champagne colored convertible whizzed by. He didn’t have to see the vanity plates to know it was her. Everything on the list of possessions they’d sparred over this past year was indelibly printed on his brain.

He hadn’t planned on following her any more than he’d planned on kissing her, but as he steered into a gap in traffic Tristan had a hunch that this would turn out a whole lot more fulfilling and less frustrating than that ill-conceived meeting of mouths.

“I’m so glad you suggested this,” Vanessa said.

This was to meet by the water at Old Poynton, where the breeze drifting off Long Island Sound tempered the warmth of the late afternoon sun; where breathing the fresh marine air cooled the edgy heat of Vanessa’s temper … a little.

And you was Andy Silverman, who’d suggested the outdoor walk-and-talk when he’d called earlier to change plans.

Andy had grown up in the same Yonkers neighborhood as Vanessa’s family, and she’d recognized him as soon as he commenced working at Twelve Oaks, the special-needs facility that had been home to her younger brother for the past seven years. They met regularly to discuss Lew’s program and his progress, and Andy had become more than her brother’s counselor.

Now she counted him as a friend … the only friend who knew and understood Lew and the difficulties posed by his autism.

“Tough day at the country club?” Despite the light-hearted comment, she felt a serious edge to Andy’s sidelong look. “You want to talk about it?”

“Haven’t we just done that?”

They’d talked about Lew, as they always did, and about why Andy had cancelled their trip to the city. Storms, like today’s, were one of several triggers that upset Lew’s need for calm and routine order.

“Your brother has bad days all the time,” Andy said now. “You’re used to that.”

No. She didn’t think she would ever call herself used to Andy’s autism or his most difficult, sometimes violently damaging, days. But she conceded Andy’s perceptive point. He knew there was more worrying her today than Lew.

“I’m not sure you want to hear this,” she said.

“Hey, I’m a professional listener.”

That made her smile. “Do you charge extra for out-of-hours consultations, Dr. Silverman?”

They’d reached the end of the promenade. Andy paused and leaned against the stone wall that separated the walkway from the beach. He folded his arms across his chest. His open face and calm expression were part of what made him so good at his job. “Go ahead and spit it out. You know you want to.”

Not so much want to as need to, Vanessa silently amended. Her gaze shifted beyond her companion, tracking two windsurfers as they rode a gust of air across the clean blue surface of the Sound. Then one of the surfers slowed, faltered, and toppled into the water, his charmed ride on the wind over.

“Wouldn’t it be nice if we all had such soft landings,” she mused out loud.

“You’ve lost me.”

With a small sigh, she turned her attention back to Andy and his invitation to spit it out. “It’s Tristan Thorpe.”

Andy tsked in sympathy. “Isn’t it always?”

“He’s here. In Eastwick.”

“For the trial? I thought that wasn’t till next month.”

“He’s here because he thinks he’s found a way to beat me without going to court.” All semblance of relaxation destroyed, Vanessa paced away a couple of steps, then swung back. “Which he hasn’t, but that won’t stop him making trouble.”

“Only if you let him.”

She laughed, a short, sharp, humorless sound. “How can I stop him? He has it in his head that I’m a nasty sly adulterer and he’s here to prove it!”

To his credit, Andy barely blinked at that disclosure. She supposed, in his line of work, he heard all manner of shockers. “That’s not a problem if there’s nothing to substantiate.”

“Of course there’s nothing to substantiate!”

“But you’re upset because people might believe that of you, despite your innocence?”

“I’m upset because … because …”

Because he believes it. Because he kissed me. Because I can’t stop thinking about that.

“My point exactly,” Andy said, misinterpreting her stumble into silence. “Your friends know you well enough to not believe whatever he might put about.”

“My friends know. You know. I know,” she countered hotly, “but he’s always thought the worst of me. Now he believes I’m not only an Anna Nicole Smith clone who took advantage of a susceptible older man, but I kept a lover on the side to share my ill-gotten spoils.” She exhaled on a note of disgust. “I don’t even know why I’m surprised.”

Andy regarded her closely for a long moment. “He’s really got you stewing, hasn’t he?”

Oh, yes. In ways she didn’t want to think about, let alone talk about. She’d let him kiss her, she’d breathed the scent of him into her lungs, and then she’d raised her hand, for pity’s sake, when she despised violence born of temper and heated words and uncontrolled emotions.

“He got me so riled,” she said with quiet intensity, her stomach twisting with the pain of those long-ago memories. “I wanted to hit him, Andy.”

“But you didn’t.”

Only because he stopped me.

She could still feel the steely grip of his hand, the pressure of his fingers wrapped around her wrist, and the need to lash out raging in her blood. And the worst of it? Not the loss of her treasured gift but the acknowledgment, on the hour-plus drive up here, that she hadn’t been lashing out at him but at her fickle body’s unexpected and unwanted response.

“I told myself not to let him get under my skin. I invited him into my home when I wanted to slam the door in his face. I tried to be polite and calm. But the man is just so … so …” Unable to find a suitable descriptor, she spread her hands in a silent gesture of appeal. Except she doubted the dictionary contained a single word strong enough, hot enough, complex enough to cover all that Tristan had evoked in her that afternoon. “And it’s not only him that has me stewing.”

Suddenly she couldn’t stand still any longer. Hooking an arm through one of Andy’s folded ones, she forced him into motion, walking back toward the strip of tourist boutiques and sidewalk eateries opposite the small beach and marina.

“Someone sent him a letter. An accusation. That’s how this latest crusade of his started.” She tugged at his arm in agitation. “Who would do such a thing?”

“Did he show you this letter?”

Vanessa shook her head and in Andy’s raised brows she read another question. “Are you thinking that this letter might not exist?”

“If I were you,” he said carefully, “I’d want to see it.”

At the time she’d been too astounded and too het up by his allegations. She hadn’t thought of asking to see the evidence. Frowning, she walked and she chewed the whole exchange and its implications over in her mind. “Why would he invent this letter and come all the way over here to prove its claims? That only makes sense if he believes he can prove it. And that only makes sense if someone—such as his correspondent—has convinced him they have something on me.”

And that made no sense because she had never slept around.

Not once. Not ever.

“It’s not as if I have a pool boy,” she continued, “or a tennis pro or a personal trainer. The only male staff I employ regularly is Gloria’s Bennie, and that’s only for odd jobs to keep her happy. I see Jack, my attorney, regularly but everyone knows he’s a besotted new husband and soon-to-be father.”

“And you see me.”

Andy’s evenly spoken comment hung in the air a second before she grasped its significance. Then she stopped in her tracks, shaking her head with a slowly dawning realization. Usually they met behind the walls of Twelve Oaks’ sprawling estate, in one of the formal meeting rooms or the less formal library, or they walked around the estate’s spacious grounds.

But on occasions they did meet in the nearby town of Lexford, for lunch or a coffee. And they’d also met once or twice here at the shore where Andy lived.

“Do you think some busybody could have seen—” she waggled her hand between them, unable to voice the us that might link their friendship in a nonplatonic way “—and misconstrued?”

“It’s possible.”

Vanessa stared at him wide-eyed. Then, pity help her, she couldn’t suppress an involuntary giggle.

“Pretty funny, huh?”

“I’m sorry.” Sobering instantly, she reached out and put her hand on his arm. And that was the thing with Andy—she could touch him and feel no spark, no jolt, no prickling of heat. Nothing but a comfortable warmth similar to what she’d established with her husband and still missed so very much. “I didn’t mean to offend you. You know I love you like a brother.”

“I know that, but what about someone watching us?”

Shock immobilized her for a split second. Then she drew back her hand and her body, suddenly aware of how close they stood. As they’d done on countless other innocent occasions.

With an audience?

They continued walking, but Vanessa couldn’t stop herself from glancing at each car and passing pedestrian. Scores of people were out enjoying the gorgeous summer twilight, yet she felt exposed.

Despite the warmth of the air she felt a chill run over her skin. “I hate the thought that someone might have been following me.”

“That’s something I’ve never quite understood.”

She cut him a narrow look. “The fact that I don’t like being spied on?”

“The fact you’ve kept Lew and your visits to Twelve Oaks secret.”

“That has nothing to do with being spied on.”

“Maybe not,” he said in his usual mild manner. “But if the good folk of Eastwick knew about your brother, then they’d also understand why you need to drive up here so often and why you meet with me. That would take care of one possible misinterpretation.”

As usual, Andy was right. Except up until now she hadn’t seen any need to share this most personal part of her life. Only Stuart—plus a handful of trusted professionals and some old friends from her pre-Eastwick days—knew about Lew. Together they had decided to keep his long-term tenancy at Twelve Oaks private.

“Are you ashamed of—”

“Of course not!” Vanessa swung around to face Andy, all thoughts of being spied upon lost in the fierceness of her answer. “Don’t you dare suggest that Lew is some sort of embarrassment. I would take out a paid page in the New York Times if I thought it would help, but what would be the point? All that would accomplish is a whole lot of talk and finger-pointing from small-minded people who don’t understand.”

“And this is the society you want to live in?”

“No. This is the society I chose to live in when I married Stuart.”

Because that choice included Twelve Oaks, the exclusive facility that provided Lew with the best environment, the right therapy, everything he needed to grow and flourish as an individual. She hadn’t even dreamed of accessing such an expensive option before she met her future husband. In fact she’d been at the end of her tether, out of options for caring for Lew and dealing with his increasingly violent tendencies as he grew from a boy into aman.

“Besides,” she continued, “not everyone in Eastwick is narrow-minded. If they knew, my friends would want to visit, to help, and you know how Lew is with new people and changes to his routine. He is happy and I’m happy visiting and doing my voluntary work without it being talked about all over town. I’ve had enough poor Vanessas to last a lifetime, thank you very much!”

They resumed walking, Andy silent in a way that suggested he didn’t agree. Was she being selfish, making it easier on herself, protecting her cushy life? After Stuart’s death she had wanted to confide in her friends, because Lord knows she’d felt so incredibly alone and lonely. But then she had Gloria, who’d come from the same background, who knew Lew. Plus Andy. Two of the best friends she could have because, unlike her Eastwick friends, they’d known her when she was plain Vanessa Kotzur.

It had been easier to keep the status quo, for so many reasons.

What about now? her pragmatic side wanted to know.

“I need to see the letter,” she said with quiet resolve.

Before she made any decision on what else to do, she had to see the evidence.

Andy nodded grimly. “And you need to set him straight about me.”

Vanessa’s whole system bucked in protest. She could actually feel her feet dragging on the pavement as they neared the street where she’d parked her car.

“Perhaps I can do this without even mentioning Lew. I’ll say I do voluntary work at Twelve Oaks.” Which she did. “And we’re working together on a program … a new music therapy program which I’m looking at funding. And that I’m interested in extending the equestrian therapy facility.”

This wasn’t even bending the truth. She intended making a very significant donation from Stuart’s estate, once it was finalized, to help with both of those programs as well as funding positions for adolescents from low-income families.

Andy’s frown looked unconvinced. “He’s looking for proof of adultery, Vanessa. He’ll have you investigated.”

“And find out what? That I drive up to Lexford two or three times a week, to a special-needs home where I’m listed as a volunteer?”

“A home with a resident who shares your surname. Any investigator worth his salt is going to make the connection.”

Didn’t he ever tire of being so calm and logical and right? Blast him. Because he was right, and already her mind had leaped ahead to the next correlation a professional investigator—or his eagle-eyed employer—may make.

Lew Kotzur had moved into Twelve Oaks the same month that his sister Vanessa quit her two waitressing jobs to marry Stuart Thorpe. The man who pulled strings to get young Lew into the place. The man behind the trust fund that paid all his bills.

A sick feeling of fatalism settled over her as they stopped beside her car. Even before Andy spoke. “The way I see it, you have two options, Vanessa.”

“I get to choose my poison?”

He didn’t smile at her attempt at levity. His calm, level gaze held hers as he laid those choices on the line. “Either you let Thorpe investigate and risk him spreading nasty stuff about why you keep your brother hidden away from your new society friends. Or you tell him yourself and explain your motivation. There’re your choices, Vanessa. It’s up to you.”




Three


There wasn’t any choice. Sitting in her car, watching Andy’s loping stride carry him off toward the marina, Vanessa knew exactly what she had to do. Swallow her poison quickly, before she had time to think about how bitter it would taste going down.

She dug her cell phone from her purse. Stared at the keypad so long that the numbers swam before her eyes. Closed her eyes until the crashing wave of dread passed.

This isn’t about you, Ms. Pragmatist lectured. Think about Lew. Think about how disruptive and upsetting this could end up for everyone at Twelve Oaks if an investigator started hanging around, grilling staff and residents.

She didn’t have Tristan’s cell number, but she did have several Eastwick hotels in her phone’s directory. How hard could he be to find?

Not very, as it turned out.

On her second attempt, the receptionist at the Hotel Marabella put her straight through to his suite. She didn’t have a chance to second think, or to do any more than draw a deep breath and silently wail, why the Marabella? She preferred to think he’d have chosen one of the big chains instead of the tasteful Mediterranean-style boutique hotel whose restaurant was among her favorites.

Perhaps his secretary chose it. Or a travel agent. Business executives did not make their own—

“Hello.”

Vanessa started so violently she almost dropped her phone.

By the time she’d recovered and compelled her heart to stop racing and pressed the tiny handset to her ear, he was repeating his greeting and asking if anyone was there. His voice was unmistakable, a deep, thick drawl colored by his years down under. That color matched the sun-tinged ends of his rich brown hair, the deep tan of his skin, but not the alert intensity of his eyes.

She felt a ripple of hot-cold response, as if those eyes were on her again. Those eyes and his mouth—

“It’s Vanessa,” she said quickly, staunching that memory. “Vanessa Thorpe.”

Silence.

“I wasn’t expecting to find you in.”

“You weren’t expecting …” he murmured, slightly puzzled, slightly mocking. “And yet you called?”

“I thought you might be out for dinner. I intended leaving a message.”

“A different message to the one you left me with earlier?”

Vanessa counted to five slowly. He knew she’d been spitting mad when she ordered him out of her house. And he knew why, blast him. She was not going to let that cynical taunt get to her. She had to do this. For Lew. For Andy. For her own guilty conscience. “I need to talk to you.”

“I’m listening.”

“I meant, in person.”

In the next beat of silence she could almost feel his stillness, that hard-edged intensity fixed on her from fifty-odd miles away. Ridiculous, she knew, but that didn’t stop a tight feeling of apprehension from gripping her stomach.

“Tomorrow?” he asked.

With a full schedule of committee meetings plus a trip to Lexford to see how Lew was doing after today’s dramas, her only free hour was first thing in the morning. And the idea of inviting him to her home, or arranging to meet for breakfast somewhere else, caused every cell in her body to scream in protest. Breakfast meant straight out of bed. Breakfast also meant a long night of worry and endless opportunity to change her mind.

“Tonight would suit me better.” Vanessa closed her eyes and tried to block out how bad an idea this might turn out to be. “Do you have plans?”

“I have a dinner reservation downstairs.”

“I’m sure they will hold your table.”

“I’m sure they would,” he countered. “If I asked them to.”

She sucked in a breath, but she couldn’t suck back her sharp retort. “Are you deliberately trying to antagonize me?”

“I don’t think either one of us has to try. Do you?”

Okay. So he wasn’t going to make this easy, but that didn’t mean she would give up. “Are you dining alone?”

“Why do you ask? Would you like to break bread with me?”

“I would like,” she enunciated, after ungritting her teeth, “to speak to you. If you’re dining alone, I thought that may provide an opportunity without intruding on your plans.”

Another pause in which she could almost hear him sizing up the implications of her request. Then, he said, “I’ll have the restaurant add another setting.”

“Just a chair,” she said quickly. “I won’t be eating so please don’t wait for me. I’ll be there in an hour.”

“I look forward to it, duchess.”

Tristan had drawled that closing line with a liberal dose of mockery, but he did look forward to Vanessa’s arrival. Very much. He couldn’t wait to see how she explained her rapid turnaround from get out of my house to I need to talk. He could have made it easy on her by changing his dinner booking and meeting her downstairs in the lounge bar or the more private library. He could have offered to drive out to her house, to save her the trip into town.

But after witnessing her rendezvous at Old Poynton, knowing she’d rushed helter-skelter to her lover right after scoffing at the letter’s allegations, he was in no mood for making anything easy for Vanessa.

So. She wanted to talk. Most likely to spin a story concocted during that intense seaside heart-to-heart. He couldn’t imagine her confessing but she might attempt to explain away her secret meetings with lover boy. Whichever way she played it, he was ready.

This time she wouldn’t catch him unawares.

This time he would keep his hormones on ice.

Resisting the urge to check his watch, he poured a second glass of wine and pushed his dinner plate aside. He’d requested a table at the end of the terrace, where, in secluded peace, he could pretend to enjoy the food and the shimmer of reflected moonlight off the darkened waters of the Sound. Where he wouldn’t be scanning the door for the distinctive shimmer of moonlight-blond hair.

Still, he sensed her arrival several minutes later. Without turning he knew her footsteps and felt the quickening of anticipation in his blood. When he started to rise from his chair, she waved him back down. Her warm smile was all for the waiter who fussed over seating her—not opposite but catercorner to him.

“So madam, too, can enjoy the view.”

She thanked Josef and while he took her order for some ridiculous froufrou coffee, Tristan kicked back in his chair and tried not to notice that she still wore the same pink sundress.

Because she hadn’t yet gone home? Because she’d spent all this time at Old Poynton … doing what?

Only walking? Only talking?

The questions—and the possibility in the answers—snarled through him, sharp and mean. For a long moment he continued to stare at her, waiting for Josef to leave. Waiting for her to acknowledge his presence. Waiting for the impulse to ask those questions to pass so he could speak with some civility.

He took a sip from his very civilized sauvignon blanc. “Traffic bad?”

She’d been fussing with her purse, setting it just so on the table, but she looked up sharply.

“You said an hour.”

“Have I held you up?” Her expression was polite, her voice as cool and dry as his wine. “If you have another appointment, you should have said when I called. I didn’t mean—”

“My only appointment is upstairs, with my bed. It’s been a long day.”

Across the table, their gazes met and held. Comprehension flickered in her eyes, like an unspoken wince of sympathy. “I’m sorry. You must have started the day yesterday, on the other side of the world.”

And didn’t that seem a long time ago? He should have been wiped out but instead he felt energized. By her presence, by her proximity, by the subtle drift of her perfume in the still night air. But mostly by the promise of another skirmish in their ongoing battle.

“I’m sure you didn’t come here to talk about my long day.” And there was something in her eyes or in his primed-for-combat blood, that pushed him to add, “Or my current need to get horizontal.”

“No.” She answered without pause, without dropping eye contact, without responding to his deliberate provocation. “I didn’t.”

“So. What do you want?”

“I want to see the letter.”

Tristan arched an eyebrow. “You don’t believe it exists?”

“Is there any reason I should?”

“I’ve flown ten thousand miles today on the strength of it.”

“So you say.”

Rocking back in his chair, he met the steady challenge of her gaze. “If the lover doesn’t exist and the letter doesn’t exist, why are you worried?”

“Do I look worried?”

“You’re here.”

Irritation flared in her eyes but before she could respond, Josef arrived with her coffee. She smiled up at the young waiter, her annoyance instantly concealed by an expression as warm and friendly as when she’d opened the door that afternoon. Then Tristan cleared his throat and the subtle reminder of his presence wiped all the warmth from her face. Exactly the same as when she’d found him on her doorstep.

“I am here,” she said tightly, “to see this letter. If it exists.”

“Oh, it exists, duchess. Same as your lover.” Turning the wineglass with his fingers, he waited a second before continuing. “A little young, isn’t he?”

A frown marred the smooth perfection of her face. “Josef?”

“Lover boy. At Old Poynton.”

“How do you …” Her voice trailed off and her eyes widened as the inference took hold. “You followed me this afternoon?”

“Inadvertently.”

“You accidentally followed me? For fifty miles?”

One shoulder lifted in a negligent shrug. “I took a wrong turn. You sped by. I thought it might be interesting to find out who you needed to see in such a godfire hurry.”

Vanessa stared across at him with a growing sense of horror and violation. Not the chill shivers of earlier, when she’d thought about being spied on, but a hot wave of outrage. Because he’d done this. Not some anonymous stranger, but this man. Sitting beside her and passing this off as if it were a big fat nothing.

For a long second she had to fight the urge to hurl something at him. The closest something was her cinnamon mocha macchiato, untouched and still hot enough to do serious damage. The need steamed through her, curling her fingers so tightly around the coffee cup’s handle, she was afraid it might crack under the pressure.

Not good, Vanessa. Not cool. Not restrained. Not gracious.

Not any of the things she loved about this lifestyle she’d adopted.

Through sheer force of willpower she loosened her grip, but she couldn’t risk speaking for fear of the words she might hurl in lieu of the physical. She couldn’t even look at him, in case that fired her rage anew. To remind herself of the very public venue and her very elegant surroundings and the very real need to gather some restraint, she looked past his shoulder at the restaurant and the other diners.

Even on a Tuesday night the Marabella’s celebrated restaurant was close to capacity, the crowd an even mix of well-heeled tourists and business suits and elegantly dressed locals. Many she recognized; several she knew well enough to call friends. Frank Forrester, one of Stuart’s old golfing buddies, tipped his silver head and winked broadly when he caught her eye.

Smiling back, she breathed a silent sigh of relief that Frank’s company didn’t include his wife. The last thing she needed was Delia Forrester sauntering over to flutter eyelashes and flaunt her latest chest augmentation at the new man in town. And if Delia were present, she would notice Tristan. She would saunter and flutter and flaunt because that’s what Delia did in the presence of men, despite the husband she gave every appearance of doting on.

“What’s the matter, duchess? Afraid you’ll be seen with me?”

Tristan’s soft drawl cut through her reflection, drawing her attention back to him. When her gaze collided with his—sharp, steady, the rich ocean blue darkened like night on the water—she experienced a brief pulse of disorientation, almost like vertigo.

“Not at all,” she replied crisply, shaking off that weird sensation. What was the matter with her? Why did she let him get to her so easily, in so many ways? “We are here to discuss business, the same as these gentlemen—” she spread her hands, indicating the sprinkling of suits around them “—and the real estate reps over by the door.”

When his gaze followed hers, taking in the company, Vanessa’s heart gave a tiny bump of discovery.

She’d hit upon the ideal segue back to Andy and this afternoon’s meeting and the ridiculous misconception about an affair. “I don’t mind being seen with you, Tristan,” she said in a smooth, even voice, while her insides tightened and twisted over where this conversation might lead. “It’s no different from two people meeting, say, at the shore, to talk business.”

“Your meeting this afternoon was business?”

Lifting her chin, she met his sardonic gaze. “I do voluntary work at a facility for the developmentally disabled up near Lexford. Andy works there as a counselor.”

“And you meet him, about your volunteering, at the shore? After hours?”

“Not usually.” She moistened her lips. Chose the next words with careful precision. “Andy isn’t only a work associate, you see. We grew up in the same neighborhood, went to the same school. He’s a good friend and we do meet after hours, sometimes, and not always to talk about my volunteering. Given his profession, Andy is a good listener.”

“And today—this afternoon—you needed to talk.”

“To vent,” she corrected.

“About me.”

“Who else?”

He didn’t counter for a tick, and there was something in his expression that started a drumbeat of tension in her blood, a beat that slowed and thickened when his gaze dropped to her lips. “Did you tell him about our kiss?”

The intimacy of his words washed through her, at first warm and strong with remembered sensations and then all wrong. Our kiss denoted sharing. A lovers’ kiss, hushed with reverence and sweet with romance, not imbued with bitter disdain and the bite of angry words.

She shook her head. “That wasn’t a kiss.”

“No?”

“It was a power play, and you know it.”

A note of surprise flickered in the darkened depths of his eyes. “Was it really so bad?”

“As far as kisses go, it fell a long way short of good.”

He rocked back in his chair, his expression trickily hard to gauge. Then he shocked the devil out of her by laughing—a low, lazy chuckle that stayed on his lips and tingled through her body like the sparks of a slow-burning fuse.

“Here’s where I should say, I can do better.”

“To which I would reply, you won’t ever get that second chance.”

Treacherous territory, Ms. Pragmatist warned her. She’d challenged him before. In the keeping room today, for example, and even before today’s first face-to-face confrontation they’d employed words to cut and thrust, in terse e-mails and messages delivered via their respective attorneys.

But this verbal sparring held a different edge.

This came in the shadow of laughter, with a lazy smile and a dangerous shot of pleasure because Vanessa sensed that, finally, she had managed to surprise him in a positive way. That shouldn’t have pleased her quite so much. She should have felt repelled by the prospect of another kiss, a real kiss, with no agenda other than exploring—

No. She jolted upright, appalled that she’d been staring at his lips. That she’d allowed the marine-scented air and the witchery of a full moon to lure her from her evening’s task.

No more, Ms. Pragmatist admonished. Get to the point and get out of here.

“Andy is not my lover. He never was. He never will be.” She laid it on the line in a resolute rush. “If he is named in that letter, I think it’s only fair that he should know.”

“There are no names.”

“Can I see?”

“Now?” He showed his hands, palms up, empty. “Not possible. It’s in my lawyer’s hands.”

“You didn’t waste any time.”

“You had your chance this afternoon, when I came to your house. It was you who suggested we deal through our lawyers.”

Yes, she remembered. She also remembered what had made her so spitting mad that she’d kicked him out without seeing the letter. Blast him and her own sorry self for not asking over the phone. She could have saved herself the drive and the aggravation and the gossip she’d no doubt started by meeting him in this public place.

Tight frustration prickled at the back of her throat, but she lifted her chin and ruthlessly shoved that emotion aside. “Could you please arrange for a copy to be sent to my lawyer’s office tomorrow?”

“First thing,” he replied with surprising compliance.

Prepared for their usual slanging match, Vanessa stared at him through narrowed eyes. What was the hitch? What angle was he playing? He held her gaze for a long moment, steady, blue, guileless, and there was nothing left to say.

Nothing left to do, except get out of there before she started trusting his word.

“Fine.” With a brief, decisive nod, she reached for her purse. A shadow fell across their table. And Frank Forrester’s distinctive longtime smoker’s voice rasped through the silence.

“Sorry for the intrusion, but I couldn’t leave without saying hello to my second favorite blonde. Given my rusty old ticker—” he tapped a thin hand against his chest and winked “—I don’t put off till tomorrow.”

Although Frank often quipped about his age and his heart condition, Vanessa couldn’t voice her usual light-hearted reproach. Not only because he’d interrupted her getaway, either. Up close he looked a decade older than his years, frail and slight and stooped.

Smiling up at him, she only hoped her shock at his appearance didn’t show on her face.

“Your company is never an intrusion,” she assured him. And because it was the gracious thing to do, she added, “Would you care to join us? For coffee or a nightcap?”

“No, no. I’m on my way home. Can’t dally.” But he made no move to leave and his gaze glinted with genuine interest—or curiosity—as it edged toward her companion and back.

As much as she’d have liked to, Vanessa couldn’t ignore the hint. “Tristan, meet Frank Forrester. Frank, this is Stuart’s son. From Australia.”

“You don’t say?” Frank shook his head slowly, his gaze beetling in on the younger man’s face. “You’ve grown some since I last saw you, lad. You were a weedy young beanpole then. It must be at least fifteen years.”

“Twenty,” Tristan said. And he was on his feet, shaking hands. Being clapped on the back in the male version of an embrace.

“Welcome back to Eastwick, lad. Welcome home!”

Vanessa blinked with surprise. She hadn’t considered they might know one another, despite the former bank president’s longtime friendship with Stuart. And as for the welcome home—the concept of Tristan belonging here in Eastwick was almost as unsettling as seeing him in her home that afternoon.

“Suppose you’re here on business,” Frank mused. “You started up a telecom, didn’t you? Heard you’d turned it into one of the Pacific’s major players.”

“I’m surprised you’ve heard of us.”

Frank made a gruff sound. “Your father was a proud man. He wasn’t above crowing your successes.”

If this came as a surprise to Tristan, he didn’t show it. No shift in his expression, no acknowledgment, no mention of his father. Just a smoothly offered, “I recently sold out of the company, as it happens.”

“You don’t say.”

“It was an attractive offer.”

“Made a killing, eh?”

Tristan’s smile came quick and unexpected, its impact a devil of awareness that settled low in her belly. She had to force herself to concentrate on his words. Not the sharp line of his jaw or the curve of his lips. Not the sudden recall of those lips against hers, but his words.

He’s sold his business. Does that mean this trip is open-ended? That nothing will prevent him staying in Eastwick for as long as it took?

“Are you asking as a friend or a banker?” he asked.

Frank chuckled. “I’m an old man. Retired, didn’t you know?”

“Once a banker, always a banker.”

Suppressing a smile, Vanessa looked away. Apparently she needed her own mantra: once a brute, always a brute. Just to remind herself what lurked behind that slow, charismatic grin.

“You’ll have to come for dinner one night,” Frank suggested. “If you’re in town for more than a day or two.”

“That depends—” she felt the glancing touch of a sharp blue gaze “—on my business.”

“Are you staying with Vanessa? Even better. Why don’t you both come?”

Staying with her? In her home? Her heart did a little stumbling hitch as their eyes met. No way.

They both spoke at once.

“He’s not staying with me, actually.”

“I’m staying here. At the Marabella.”

Oblivious to the sudden tension in the air, Frank dug around in his jacket until he unearthed a card. He pressed it into Tristan’s hand. “Even more reason to join us for a meal, lad. Call me when you know your plans.”

They said their goodbyes and Frank started to leave. Then he stopped, one hand raised, as if struck by a sudden notion. He turned back. “Is that polo do this weekend, Vanessa?”

“It’s on Sunday, yes. But I don’t—”

“Perfect!” Frank spoke over the top of her objection. “Why don’t you join us?”

“Polo?”

Tristan sounded dubious and Frank nodded sympathetically. “Damn sissy sport if you ask me, but my wife seems to like it.”

Champagne, celebrities, studly Argentinean players. Of course Delia liked the polo.

Vanessa did not, particularly, but Sunday’s match was a fund-raiser for Eastwick Cares, one of her favored charities since it dealt with at-risk youth. The kind of place she and Lew might have needed, had their lives taken a slightly different turn. So, no, she couldn’t not go to the polo match, although the idea of sharing the same luncheon tent as Tristan and Delia made her stomach pitch.

“Everybody will be there,” Frank continued. “Great chance to catch up. Ain’t that right, Vanessa?”

Something sharpened in Tristan’s gaze as it fastened on her face. A sense of purpose that she instantly recognized for what it was: he would go to the polo match, all right. And he would use the opportunity to quiz people about her.

“That’s right, Frank. Anybody who’s anybody will be there.” She smiled, but the effort felt as forced as her jovial tone. “Unfortunately that means all the invitations were snapped up months ago.”

Frank waved that away with a tremulous hand. “Delia will rake up a ticket if need be. Let me know, lad.”

With a sinking heart, Vanessa watched his unsteady meandering departure. Delia could wangle an extra invitation if she set her mind and her saccharine-sweet charm and Frank’s checkbook to it. There was nothing Vanessa could do without appearing petty or vindictive, and right now all she wanted was escape.

But as she gathered up her purse she felt Tristan’s focus switch to her.

The instant she turned into the sharp cast of those blue, blue eyes, she knew what was coming next. Like a freight train barreling through the night, she saw the oncoming light and couldn’t do a thing to divert the wreck.

“Who is Delia?” he asked, right on cue.

Twenty years ago, when Tristan left Eastwick, Frank had been married to his first wife. Now Vanessa would have to explain the new, younger, recently acquired model and he would draw the inevitable comparison. Vanessa had heard it all before. She and Delia were not kindred spirits—as Delia had wanted to believe when she first sailed into the choppy waters of Eastwick society—but they had both improved their financial and social status immeasurably when they married significantly older men.

She could not speak for Delia’s motives, but she had married Stuart for his money. It was the one fact Tristan had got absolutely right.




Four


“Delia is Frank’s current wife.”

“His current wife?” Tristan asked. “How many Mrs. Forresters have there been, exactly?”

“Delia is the third.”

Not unusual in a place as affluent as Fairfield County, with men as wealthy as Frank Forrester. Or Stuart Thorpe. “Has she been the current Mrs. Forrester for long?”

“Delia and Frank met at this same charity polo event last summer. She was working as a freelance journalist, I believe, and she chose to feature Frank in an article on business leaders who’d retired here on the gold coast. They married soon after.”

Alerted by the measured choice to her words and the defensive tilt of her chin, Tristan narrowed his eyes. “Love at first sight?”

“Is that so hard to believe?”

“I haven’t met Delia. You tell me.”

“You know, that’s never come up in conversation,” she countered coolly. “I’m not that close to Delia and, frankly, I’m not comfortable discussing her.”

Tristan studied her for a moment, his interest piqued by the words and the attitude. Obviously she got along fine with Frank … but not his wife? He had to wonder about that.

And since she was tucking her dinky little purse under her arm with a note of I’m-about-to-leave finality, he might as well wonder out loud.

“Is there something I should know about her before I start making social engagements?” He gestured toward the door, indicating she should precede him. Wariness clouded her green eyes and her mouth tightened slightly because, naturally, she’d have liked to walk away. Alone.

Too bad because he intended seeing her to her car.

And getting a response to his question about Delia.

“Is there a reason you’re not close?” he persisted after they’d cleared the tables and were crossing the restaurant foyer. She wasn’t exactly dawdling but he kept up easily, a hand low on her back steering her toward the elevators. “Because I’d have thought you would have plenty in common.”

Halting abruptly, she turned to him. Green sparks flared in her eyes. “Don’t presume too much, Tristan. You’ve never met Delia. And you only think you know me.”

For a moment the inherent challenge in her words was secondary to the impact of her nearness. She’d turned into his ushering arm, so swiftly that the swing of her hair brushed his arm and shoulder. Several strands had caught against his dark jacket, and when he inhaled—a quick flare of his nostrils, a sharp suck of air—he breathed her delicate floral scent and the combination rocked his brain and libido with dizzying temptation.

He knew better than to touch but he did it anyway.

With his free hand he lifted those rogue strands from his jacket and coiled them around his fingers. Her hair was as fine and silky soft as he’d imagined but surprisingly cool, unlike the flush of heat in her throat and the softening of her full lips.

Completely unlike the bolt of energy that crackled in the air as their eyes met and held.

“Is that a challenge?” he asked.

She blinked slowly, as if lost in the moment and the dangerous vibration pulsing between them. “What do you mean?”

“To get to know you better.”

Behind them the elevator announced its arrival. The subtle electronic distraction brought her head up and back, breaking eye contact and forcing him to release her hair. A couple exited the elevator, hand in hand and so absorbed in each other they’d have walked right through him and Vanessa—or a herd of stampeding buffalo—if he hadn’t backed out of the way.

“Not at all,” she responded once they were alone again. “It was a statement of fact. You 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. Why don’t you come over here and have breakfast with us?” Lily suggested. “Jack will be home in an hour or so. He went in early to brief an associate on a court appearance because he’s taking the morning off. Doctor’s appointment.”

“Is everything all right?”

Lily chuckled. “As far as I know, but Mr. Protective insists on taking me, every time.”

Vanessa didn’t want to intrude on their morning plans but Lily insisted. And right on eight o’clock she was following her heavily pregnant friend into the kitchen of the Cartwrights’ two-story colonial home. And it was a home, as bright and cheerful and welcoming as the glowing Lily.

Lily was a recent addition to the circle of friends known as the Debs Club and Vanessa had felt an immediate kinship. Possibly because she, too, had grown up in a tough environment unlike the rest of the group who truly were debs. Lily, too, had struggled to fit into this privileged society in the early months of her marriage, but she and Jack had worked things out and now the happiness she deserved showed on her face.

“Jack’s not home yet.” Lily rolled her eyes but with a cheerfulness that said she didn’t mind. Her man would be home soon and that suited her fine. “I called to let him know you were coming over so he shouldn’t be long. Can I get you coffee? Tea? Juice?”

“Oh, please, you don’t have to wait on me. Sit down.”

“And take a weight off?”

“Yes. Exactly.” For the first time she let her eyes rest on the other woman’s belly and she felt an unfamiliar twinge of longing, a reaction she hid behind a smile. “Are you sure that’s not twins in there?”

“Sometimes I swear there are three.” Lily paused in the middle of making a pot of tea. Her expressive blue eyes grew dreamy. “Not that I would mind.”

Of course she wouldn’t. Her down-to-earth honesty combined with her caring nature and a street-smart wisdom had made her a wonderful social worker and would make her an equally wonderful mother.

Lucky kids, Vanessa thought, and the pang in her middle intensified.

“So.” Teapot in hand, Lily waddled across to the table and lowered herself carefully into a chair. “Tell me about Tristan Thorpe.”

For once Vanessa was relieved to bring him into the conversation—anything to stifle this bizarre attack of motherhood envy. She had no idea where that had sprung from, all of a sudden. “He arrived yesterday. He’s staying at the Marabella. He’s even more aggravating face-to-face.”

“You’ve seen him already?” Lily propped her chin in a hand, all eager-eyed curiosity. “Do tell.”

Where should she start? What could she say without giving away the depth of her confusion and conflict? Just saying face-to-face had brought a guilty warmth to her cheeks, mostly because it put her in mind of mouth-to-mouth.

And hadn’t that wild sensual memory kept her company all through the night!

“There’s probably no need for me to tell you anything,” she said, recalling one of the other things that had kept her awake. “You will hear it all on the grapevine soon enough.”

“All?”

“I met with him at the Marabella restaurant last night.”

“You went to dinner with him?” Surprise rounded Lily’s eyes. “Did anyone survive?”

Vanessa pulled a face. “Barely. As luck would have it, Frank Forrester happened along.”

“With Delia?”

“No, but he’ll tell her that he ran into us. You know Delia. She needs to know everything that’s going on.”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

Delia had really stuck her claws into Lily, for no apparent reason other than her friendship with the Debs. That ugliness had exposed a whole new side of Delia Forrester—a side that turned Vanessa ice-cold with anxiety when she thought about—

“Hey, what’s the matter?”

Vanessa blinked, and realized that her worried frown had drawn Lily’s question. She started to wave her friend’s concern aside, then changed her mind. Of all the Debs, Lily would most likely understand.

“I was thinking about how these people—the Delias of this world—can tear a person apart for no reason. A whisper here, a catty comment there, and before you know it everyone is talking and wondering.” She took a breath. “Have you heard any rumors about me?”

“What kind of rumors?”

“Oh, that I’m meeting a man in secret. That I have been for years.”

“Where on earth did this come from?” Lily’s eyes narrowed. “Tristan?”

“He says he got a letter, from someone over here—” she spread her hands to indicate Eastwick, their home “—claiming there is proof.”

Something flickered in Lily’s eyes and she sat up straighter. She opened her mouth, about to speak, but then her focus shifted, distracted by the sound of footsteps. As her husband came into view her expression transformed, growing bright and soft and incandescent with love.

Although Jack greeted Vanessa with an apology for his tardiness, it was a fleeting acknowledgment of her presence. Because then he was smiling at his wife as he leaned over and pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead and touched a gently protective hand to her stomach.

It was nothing and it was everything, a symbol of the intimacy of their small family circle and a reminder of what she, Vanessa, had never experienced and could never contemplate for herself.

Suddenly her throat felt thick with a desperate sense of yearning. It was ridiculous, hopeless, frustrating. She didn’t even want this love, this coupledom, this family deal. She had everything she wanted, everything necessary and important, and there was no room or time or emotional energy left for anything else.

“So, I hear that Tristan Thorpe is in town.” Jack straightened, his expression smoothing into business professional. It seemed that the news had traveled even faster than she’d anticipated. “Is he here to make trouble?”

“He got a letter,” Lily supplied, and her husband went very still. His eyes narrowed on Vanessa. “The same as the others?”

“The … others?” Vanessa repeated stupidly, and in the same instant it struck her what they meant.

Two anonymous extortion letters had been sent several months back, one to Jack and one to Caroline Keating-Spence. She shook her head slowly, kicking herself for not considering this connection.

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen the letter yet.” Her heart beat hard in her chest, a thick pulse of dismay, as she looked from Jack’s still countenance to Lily’s worried frown and back again. As the full ramifications took hold. “Do you really think this could be the same person? That it might be the same man … the one Abby thinks killed Bunny?”




Five


Tristan had a breakfast meeting, too. Not with his lawyer but with the private investigator engaged by his lawyer to look into Vanessa’s alleged adultery. The P.I. turned out to be a retired cop who was punctual, professional and personable.

Tristan dismissed him anyway.

His decision was split-second, gut instinct. Sitting in a Stamford coffee house watching the guy demolish a towering stack of pancakes while he delivered the lowdown on his snooping techniques, he pictured Vanessa’s face when she’d appealed to his sense of fair play. Same as last night, he felt the grip of her emotion as she looked him in the eye and hit him with the reminder that this was between the two of them.

That didn’t mean he’d changed his mind, only his tactics.

Instead of employing a third party to dig into her affairs, he’d take up the shovel himself.

Instead of arranging for the letter to be sent to her lawyer, he collected it and brought it back to Eastwick. His aim: to deliver it personally.

Turning into White Birch Lane, he pulled over to make way for a horse float and the need to brake and control his deceleration alerted him that he’d been driving too fast. Worse, he realized that his haste was geared by a different anticipation from his first visit to her home. Edgy, yes, but colored by memories of her smile and her taste and the spark of a fiery inner passion when she faced up to his hard-line tactics.

Vanessa might look the picture of Nordic cool but he’d seen her gather that poise around herself like a protective cloak. Measured, learned, practiced—whatever, he knew it was fake and he couldn’t help wondering why she felt the need to adopt a facade. He couldn’t help wondering what she was hiding, and a frown pulled hard at his brow.

He’d spent a good portion of the night wondering about her, uncomfortable with how much he wanted to know. It was an alarm and a warning.

Get to know her, yes, but don’t forget why.

After the lumbering trailer disappeared, Tristan continued at a more sedate pace. He allowed himself to glance around, to take in the big homes set back from the road on finely manicured acreages. His frown deepened as he contemplated Frank Forrester’s reference to coming home.

He didn’t feel any more sense of homecoming today than yesterday, not even when he turned into the drive where he’d learned to ride a bicycle, not passing the first tree he’d climbed, not even looking out over the grass where he’d first kicked a football.

All he felt was the same gut-kick of bitterness and the keener edge of anticipation. He had to remind himself, again, of his purpose.

He wasn’t here to see her, to visit with her, to spar with her—he was here to deliver the letter.

That didn’t prevent the crunch of disappointment when the housekeeper—Gloria—opened the door and informed him, with great glee, that Mrs. Thorpe was out and not expected home until late in the afternoon.

Okay. This could still work. In fact, if Gloria didn’t mind talking, this could work out even better.

“I didn’t ever get that tea yesterday.” He smiled and was rewarded with the suspicious narrowing of the woman’s eyes. “Is the invitation still open?”

“I guess I could manage a pot of tea.”

She stepped back and let him precede her into the foyer.

“So,” he said, picking up his shovel and turning the first sod. “Have you worked for Mrs. Thorpe a long time?”

After visiting with Gloria, Tristan returned to his hotel to catch up on some business. He’d sold his share in Telfour very recently and was still fielding calls and e-mails daily. Then there was his position on two company boards plus an enticing offer to join a business start-up, which had influenced his decision to sell.

He was still considering that direction and monitoring a couple of other options.

The busyness suited him fine. He didn’t know how to do nothing and immersing himself in his normal business world served as the perfect touchstone with reality. He’d needed that after the last twenty-four hours.

Thus immersed, he picked up the buzzing phone expecting to hear his assistant’s voice, only to be disappointed.

Delia Forrester hadn’t waited for him to call. He didn’t much care for the woman’s overly familiar manner but he accepted her invitation to join their party at Sunday’s polo match, regardless.

After the call, his concentration was shot so he headed to the hotel’s pool. His natural inclination was to swim hard, to burn off the excess energy in his limbs and his blood and his hormones. But after a couple of hard laps he forced himself to ease off to a lazy crawl. He refused to cede control to a situation and a woman and an untenable attraction.

Up and down the pool he loped, distracting himself by thinking about last night’s encounter with Frank Forrester, conjuring up vague memories of him and his first wife—Lyn? Linda? Lydia?—spending weekends out of the city at the Thorpe home.

And now, for all the brightness of his conversation, Frank looked worn out. Had his father aged as badly? Had he grown frail and stooped?

Worn out from keeping up with a young, fast, social-climbing wife when he should have been taking it easy with his life’s companion, enjoying the rewards he’d earned through decades of hard work?

Without realizing it, Tristan had upped his tempo to a solid churning pace, driven by those thoughts and by the effort of not thinking about his father with Vanessa.

Too young, too alive, too passionate.

All wrong.

He forced himself to stop churning—physically and mentally—at the end of the lap. Rolling onto his back, he kicked away from the edge and there she was, standing at the end of the pool, as if conjured straight out of his reflections.

Or possibly not, he decided on a longer second glance.

Dressed in a pale blue suit, with her hair pulled back and pinned up out of view, her eyes and half her face hidden behind a pair of large sunglasses, she looked older, stiffer, all polish and composure and money.

She didn’t look happy, either, but then he’d expected as much when he decided not to leave the letter with Gloria.

He knew he’d hear about it—and that she’d possibly come gunning for him—but he hadn’t expected her this early in the day. Not when he’d been told she had a full day of important charity committee meetings.

Despite all that, he felt the same adrenaline spike as last night in the restaurant and this morning walking up to her door. The same, only with an added rush of heat, which didn’t thrill him. To compose himself, he swam another lap and back, forcing himself to turn his arms over—slow and unconcerned.

Then he climbed from the pool in a long, lazy motion and collected his towel from a nearby lounger. All the while, he felt her watching him and his body’s unwelcome response undid all the good work of those relaxing last laps.

Thank God for jumbo-size hotel towels.

Walking back to where she stood, Tristan subjected her to the same thorough once-over. Payback, he justified. She didn’t move a muscle, even when he came to a halt much too close, and he wondered if her shoes—very proper, with heels and all to match the suit—had melted into the poolside tile.

“A little overdressed for a dip, aren’t you?”

A small furrow between her brows deepened. She moistened her lips, as if perhaps her mouth had all dried out. “I didn’t come here to swim.”

“Pity. It’s the weather for it.”

“Yes, it’s hot but—”

“You want to get out of the sun?” Tristan inclined his head toward the nearest setting with a big shady umbrella. What a difference a day makes. Twenty-four hours ago he’d been in the business suit, knocking at her door. Now she was on his turf and he aimed to milk the reversal in power for all it was worth.

“No.” She shook her head. “I only came for the letter. Gloria rang to tell me you’d called around but you wouldn’t leave it.”

“I didn’t know if I should.”

She made an annoyed sound with her tongue and teeth.

“Last night you specifically asked that we keep this between you and me,” he reasoned.

“Which is why you insinuated yourself into my house and interrogated my housekeeper?”

Ah. He’d thought she mightn’t approve of that. “Gloria kindly made me tea.”

“Did she kindly tell you what you needed to know?”

“She told me you were tied up with meetings all day.” He allowed his gaze to drift over her charity-meeting outfit. “Yet here you are.”

He sensed her gathering frustration, but she took a minute to glance around the surroundings and the little clusters of tourists and the discreetly hovering staff. If she’d been about to stomp on his bare foot with one of her weapon-shaped heels or to launch herself fully clothed into the pool, she resisted. Her elegantly dimpled chin came up a fraction. “I am here to fetch the letter. Do you have it or don’t you?”

“I have it, although—” he patted his hips and chest where he might have found pockets, had he been wearing clothes “—not on me.”

Despite the dark Jackie O.-size shades, he tracked the shift of her gaze as she followed his hands down his torso. Then, as if suddenly aware of what she was doing and where she was looking, her head snapped up. “I didn’t mean on you. Is it in your room?”

“It is. You want to come up and get it?”

“No,” she replied primly. “I would like you to go up and get it. I will wait in the lounge.”

Vanessa didn’t give him a chance to bait her further. She turned smartly on her heel and walked away. Yes, he tracked her departure all the way across the long terrace. Yes, that filled her sensory memory with images of his bare tanned length wet and glistening from the pool. Of those muscles flexing and shifting as he toweled himself off. Of the blatant male beauty of a strong toned abdomen, of dark hair sprinkled across his chest and trailing down his midline and disappearing into his brief swimming trunks.

Heat flared in her skin then shivered through her flesh as she crossed from the wicked midafternoon sunshine into the cool shade of the hotel interior. She chose a secluded seat away from the terrace windows and surreptitiously fanned her face while she waited.

And waited.

She ordered an iced water and checked her watch. And realized the waiting and waiting had actually been for little more than five minutes. Time, it seemed, had taken on a strange elongated dimension since she opened the door exactly twenty-four hours ago.

In that time so little had happened and yet so much had changed. None of it made sense … except, possibly, the buff body. He’d been an elite athlete, after all, and any woman with functional eyesight would have found herself admiring those tight muscles.

It wasn’t personal.

Vanessa exhaled through her nose, exasperated with herself. She didn’t check her watch again.

Assuming he showered and dressed, he could be five or ten minutes or more. And although she hoped he did shower and dress, she didn’t want to think about him showering and dressing.

To pass the time she scoped the room, wincing when she noticed Vern and Liz Kramer at a table not too far away. Vern and Stuart went way back. While she liked the Kramers, she didn’t want to deal with another introduction and everything-is-fine conversation like last night’s episode with Frank. She just wanted to get the letter and get out of here.

The letter.

Another shiver feathered over her skin with the realization of a purpose and an anxiety forgotten from the second she saw Tristan’s strong, tan body slicing effortlessly through the azure water. Finally she would get to see this piece of evidence. She could make her decision on how to proceed: whether to take Andy’s advice and tell all, or follow Jack’s counsel in revealing as little as necessary.

Since this morning’s breakfast discussion, she’d had little time to weigh the options. Jack’s version tempted her because doing nothing, saying nothing, was always easier. But was it best for Lew? She just didn’t know. But seeing the letter—her heart raced as a tall, familiar, fully-dressed figure entered the room—she hoped, would make up her mind.

Although she’d watched him arrive, Vanessa looked away to take a long sip from her water. Then he was there, standing beside her chair, an envelope in his hand. Her whole stomach went into free fall and she had to close her eyes against a dizzying attack of anxiety.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She nodded. From the corner of her eye she saw Liz Kramer peering their way and she sucked in a quick breath. “Can we go somewhere more private? I’m afraid some more old friends are about to come over here.”

To his credit, he didn’t turn and look. “There’s the guest library downstairs. Or I could arrange a private meeting room—”

“The library will do fine. Thank you.”

Tristan stood back, hands in pockets, while she turned the envelope over in her hands. He tried not to notice the pale trepidation on her face. Or the tremor of her fingers as she drew the single sheet of folded paper from inside.

But he couldn’t ignore the tightening in his chest and gut, the desire to reach out and … hell … do what? Take the bloody letter back? Ignore his reason for holding onto it this morning, so he could hand it to her and judge her reaction?

Logic said she wouldn’t look so uncharacteristically nervous—she of the cool poise and composure—unless she were guilty.

Damn it all to blazes, he needed that guilt. He should be turning up the heat, pushing and prodding her into a hot-tempered admission. Except she looked too fearful and vulnerable and he couldn’t. Not yet.

“It’s white,” she murmured, so low he wouldn’t have made out the words if he weren’t so intensely focused on her face. Her lips. The wide bemused eyes she suddenly raised up to his. “This is the original? Not a copy?”

“That’s the original.” Then, when she continued to sit there studying the paper and the envelope, he asked, “Aren’t you going to read it?”

Perhaps she’d been building up her nerve or delaying the inevitable, because now she unfolded the letter and scanned it quickly. When she got to the end, she stared at the page for a full minute. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking only that she was thinking. In the silence of the large library room, deserted but for them, he could almost hear the wheels turning and the gears engaging.

But when she finally spoke it wasn’t to point out the lack of concrete proof in the letter’s content, as he’d expected. It was to ask, “Why would somebody do this?”

Hands deep in his pockets, Tristan shrugged. “To create trouble for you.”

“Well, they’ve succeeded there,” she said dryly, surprising him again … and reminding him of her first baffling reaction.

He nodded toward the letter. “You commented on the white paper.” She’d also asked if it was a copy. “What’s going on, Vanessa? What aren’t you telling me?”

“I …”

Vanessa paused, her chest tight with indecision. Despite Jack’s instructions to divulge as little as possible, she wanted to share. Yesterday, no. Out by the poolside, no way. But this man had shown a new consideration, in fetching the letter so promptly, in whisking her away to a private room without question, in standing aside and letting her read in peace.

Besides, telling him about the letters would take the focus off her and the secret she didn’t want to share. This one he would probably hear anyway, if he hadn’t already, on the town grapevine.

“A couple of months back,” she commenced slowly, decision made, “two people I know here in Eastwick each received an anonymous letter. I thought … I had thought … this one might be connected.”

“Now you think not, because the paper’s different?”

“And there’s no demand of any kind.”

He went still. “Are you saying these other letters contained extortion demands?”

“Yes.”

“Demanding what? What’s the link?”

“Did you know Bunny Baldwin?” she asked. “Lucinda was her real name but everybody called her Bunny. She was married to Nathan Baldwin, a friend of Stuart’s. I thought you might have known them when you lived here.”

“It’s been twenty years.”

“You remembered Frank Forrester.”

“He and his first wife spent a lot of time at our house.”

Oh. She looked away, unaccountably stung by the sudden hard cast to his eyes. Our house. Did he still feel that attachment? Was that why he was so bound and determined to win the estate back?

She wanted to ask, to know his true motivation, but he cut through her thoughts and reminded her of the subject at hand.

“I take it this Bunny Baldwin is the link between the letters?”

“Yes.” A sick, tight feeling twisted her stomach as she thought about poor Bunny. Although the woman had been fearsomely intimidating—and had cast some speculation about Vanessa marrying so spectacularly well—she’d also been mother to one of Vanessa’s closest friends. “She passed away a few months ago. They thought it was a heart attack but Abby, her daughter, discovered her journals missing. Long story short, the police are now reinvestigating her death.”

“Because of some missing journals?”

“Have you heard of the Eastwick Social Diary?”

His answer was a noncommittal, “Refresh my memory.”

“It’s a gossipy newsletter and Web site column about who’s who and doing what—” or whom “—in Eastwick. Bunny was the writer and editor, and the journals contain her notes and sources plus all the material she chose not to print.”

“Chose not to?”

Too agitated to sit, Vanessa rose to her feet and slowly circled the seating arrangement. This connection to his letter and its allegations had to be broached, as much as she dreaded how the conversation would go down. “I gather she thought some stories were too scandalous or damaging or potentially libelous to print.”

That’s all she had to say. The sharp speculation in his eyes indicated he’d joined the dots without needing further clues. “These journals were stolen and the thief has attempted to blackmail persons named in the journal?”

“That seems the likely explanation.”

“And you think it’s possible the same person sent the letter to me?”

“I thought so.” She lifted her hands and let them drop. “But then it’s not the same stationery.”

“You think a blackmailer uses the same paper every time?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what to think. Do you?”

“There’s no hint of extortion,” he said after a moment’s pause. “And if this person did have blackmail in mind, he’d have sent the letter to you. To entice you to pay hush money.”

She exhaled on a long note of resignation. Yes, he was right. Although … “Do you believe there’s no connection to Bunny and the journals? Because this is rather a big coincidence, a third anonymous letter whose source could have been the same as the first two.”

He regarded her silently for a long second. “What are you trying to sell me here? What’s your angle?”

“I don’t have an angle. I’m just trying to work out the motivation behind this letter.”

“And?”

Surprised he’d detected the nebulous hint of more in her words, she looked back at him warily. Then, she decided to tell him. “What if the thief read something in the journals and misinterpreted? What if the person referred to as having an affair wasn’t me at all? A lot of the diary pieces are guess who, don’t sue. Names are not named. What if he has the wrong person?”

“That doesn’t explain why he sent the letter to me.”

Vanessa narrowed her eyes. “You aren’t prepared to listen to my side at all, are you?”

“I listened.”

“And now what? You’ll have me investigated?”

“Yes,” he said, that blue gaze unflinchingly direct. “I will continue to investigate. I also think we should speak to the police.”

“The police?”

“You said they were investigating Bunny’s death and, I imagine, the extortion demands. Whether it’s connected or not, they should see this letter.”




Six


“I heard a whisper that Tristan Thorpe’s in town.”

Felicity Farnsworth’s casual comment dropped like a brick into the calm pool of after-lunch conversation, bringing all eyes straight to Vanessa.

Blast.

She’d rather hoped the drama surrounding Emma’s upcoming wedding—she wanted small, while her parents had invited half of Eastwick—would keep the focus off her. That’s the way she preferred things anyway, including at the regular Debs Club luncheons. These women—Felicity, Lily, Abby Talbot, Emma Dearborn and Mary Duvall—were her friends. Smart, warm, kind, inclusive, they’d invited her into their group, onto their charity committees and into their confidence.

Now, more than ever, she felt the weight of guilt because she hadn’t been so forthcoming. In six years of regular get-togethers she’d tiptoed around her past and her reason for marrying Stuart and becoming part of Eastwick society.

Although she had shared much of her angst in battling Tristan over the will, hence the girlfriends’ questions now.

“Is he here about the will contest?” Abby asked.

“Where is he staying?” Caroline wanted to know. “Have you met him, Vanessa?”

“Yes, have you seen the beast?” Felicity continued.

Carefully Vanessa put down her coffee. “Yes, I’ve met with him.” I’ve also fought with him, kissed him, ogled him in swimmers, and accompanied him to the police station. “He’s staying at the Marabella and, yes, he is here about the will. In a way.”

“You sound remarkably calm,” Emma decided. “Is that a good sign? Or are you sedated?”

“Is he dropping the contest?” Felicity asked. “He must know he’s beating a dead horse.”

“Tristan doesn’t think so,” Vanessa replied. “In fact, he’s here because he believes he’s found a way to beat me.”

They all responded pretty much at once, a mixture of scoffing remarks and how-so questions. And so she filled them in on the letter’s allegations, the no-adultery clause in Stuart’s will, and finally this morning’s meeting with the detectives handling Bunny’s case.

Silence followed, an unusual happenstance when this group met. Abby recovered first, although she looked pale and strained. Not only had she lost her mother in sudden and suspicious circumstances, but she’d had to fight tooth and nail to have her suspicions recognized. “What did the police say?”

A lot, Vanessa answered silently, most of it uncomfortable questions about her relationship with Tristan and the—nonexistent—man referred to in the letter. To her friends she said, “They took us seriously enough when we showed them the letter. They asked a lot of questions, but in the end I’m not sure they think it’s the same person.”

“Why not?” Abby leaned forward, intent and focused. “It sounds exactly like the others.”

Felicity nodded. “The lowlife who took the journals is selecting blackmail opportunities straight from the pages. It’s only a matter of time before he hits pay dirt.”

They all fell silent a moment, considering, before Emma asked, “Wouldn’t he have tried to blackmail Vanessa though?”

“Would you have paid?” Felicity turned to Vanessa. “If the letter had come to you?”

“Why would I pay when the allegation is false?”

A couple of them exchanged looks, no one met her eye, and in the ensuing silence the bottom fell out of Vanessa’s stomach. “You think I had a lover? While I was married to Stuart?”

“No, sweetie.” Emma put a hand on hers. “Not us.”

“Then … who?”

“There’s been some talk,” Caroline said.

And they hadn’t told her? Hadn’t mentioned these suspicions once? In all this time?

“You have to admit, you do keep parts of your life off-limits.”

Felicity had spoken no less than the truth. Vanessa had been secretive and this was the perfect opportunity to confide in her friends and garner their advice. That’s what friends were for, after all. Not that she had much experience, especially with her peers, and that made this hard task even tougher.

Her intentions were good, but the words lodged in her throat. Before she could coax them free, Lily returned from the bathroom and there was much fussing over how long she’d been gone.

“I ran into Delia Forrester,” she explained. “I couldn’t get away.”

“Poor you,” Caroline murmured.

“Whatever did she want?” Emma asked.

“A favor.” Lily pulled a wry face. “She needs an extra invitation to the polo benefit. Vanessa, it seems she’s invited your good friend Tristan Thorpe.”

Polo turned out to be a hard, fast and physical game—not for sissies as Frank Forrester had maintained. After several chukkers and with the help of some sideline experts, Tristan was catching on to the skilful intricacies of play and enjoying the breakneck end-to-end pace. As Frank’s binoculars rarely strayed from the field, he wondered if the old bloke had been referring to the off-field action rather than the polo itself.

Tristan had a healthy cynicism for the games played by the beautiful people, and this charity benefit had brought out the best—and worst—players. Which brought his thoughts winging straight to Delia.

Frank had introduced his wife as “My favorite blonde,” instantly tying her to the woman he’d referred to as his second-favorite at the Marabella restaurant. In those first few seconds Tristan rejected the connection out of hand. The two women were as different as Vanessa had claimed.

With her glossy facade and saccharine-sweet affectations, Delia was the kind of woman he’d expected—and wanted—to find living in his father’s house. Vanessa Thorpe was not. The truth didn’t slam into him. It had been creeping up on him for days, with every meeting, every new discovery, every disarming touch of warmth or vulnerability.

Acknowledging his error of judgment did unsettle him, however.

If he’d misjudged her character by the width of the Nullabor, could he also be wrong about other things?

Since seeing her response to the letter he’d been thinking a lot about the sender’s motivation. He’d assumed someone had a vendetta against her. Back in Australia he’d believed it—a pushy young social climber could make plenty of enemies without even trying. But since arriving in Eastwick, the worst he’d heard about her was, “She holds her cards close to her chest.”

A loud cheer rolled through the spectators’ gallery, rousing Tristan from his introspection. The local team’s number three had goaled, leveling the score. He’d learned early on that the Argentinean import was a great favorite with the partisan polo crowd.

Vanessa, too, had her fans. This Tristan measured from the locals’ responses to him.

Too polite for blatant rudeness, many met him with a cool look or shook his hand with stiff formality. Others were more direct. Vern Kramer, for example, stated outright that he sympathized with his plight—”You’re his son, after all”—but didn’t approve his tactics. Vern was another of his father’s oldest friends and one of the more vocal sideline polo experts.

Right now he was protesting an umpiring decision with much gusto. His wife took a large step back, disowning him with a wry shake of her head. “He’s not mine. I don’t know him.”

Tristan waited a moment, watching the umpire award a penalty against the local team and smiling at the roasting that ensued. Then he acknowledged Liz Kramer whose large backward step had brought her—unwittingly—to his side. “How are you, Mrs. Kramer?”

“Well, thank you.” Her greeting was polite, her tone frosty. Par for the course, although from Liz it stung. She’d been a close friend of his mother’s, a frequent visitor at their home, and he remembered her fondly. “And you, Tristan? Are you enjoying being back home?”

Not the first time he’d been asked a variation of that question and he didn’t understand the assumption any better with each repetition. “My home is in Sydney,” he said, sick of making the polite answer. “This is a business trip.”

“And are you enjoying that?”

There was a bite to her voice that suggested she knew his business. “Not particularly.”

“Which makes me wonder why you’re persisting.”

“I have my reasons.”

Eyes front, watching a melee of horses and mallets, he felt rather than saw Liz’s gaze fix on his face. “How is your mother?”

“Recovering.”

“She’s been ill?”

He cut her a look and saw genuine concern in her eyes. It suddenly struck him that of all the conversations he’d had since arriving in Eastwick, Liz was the first to ask after his mother. He decided to tell her straight. “Breast cancer. She’s had a tough few years.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

They watched the game in silence for several minutes. Then Liz said, “I hope she found the happiness she was chasing.”

Tristan frowned. “Chasing?”

“When she left your father.”

“I’d hardly define being tossed out with nothing as leaving.”

He tried to keep the bitterness from his voice but wasn’t sure he succeeded. Not when Liz made a soft clucking noise with her tongue, part sympathy, part reprimand. “She took you, Tristan, the most valuable thing from her marriage. Stuart was a long time getting over that.”

But he had got over it. With the help of a beautiful new wife, and that stuck in Tristan’s craw in a dozen disturbing ways now that he’d met Vanessa.

His gaze shifted beyond Liz, and—as he’d had done countless times in the past hours—he unerringly found Vanessa in the crowd. Despite the number and size of the hats blocking his view, despite the subtlety of her dress, despite the way she’d pinned her distinctive hair beneath a pretty little lace and net construction.

The awareness was there, like a visual magnetism. He didn’t seek her out. He looked up and like sunshine, she was there. Since acknowledging how much his attitude to her had changed, since recognizing the dangerous pull of this attraction, he’d kept his distance. Not exactly avoiding her, just proving to himself that he could resist the urge.

“He was so lucky to find Vanessa. She is a treasure.”

He looked back at Liz, found she’d followed the direction of his gaze. “I’ve heard that more than once today,” he said dryly. “A treasure. A good gal. An angel.”

“Feeling like you’ve been cast with horns and a trident?”

“Somewhat.”

With a soft chuckle, Liz lifted her empty champagne flute and looked him in the eye. For the first time he saw the familiar sparkle of her humor. “If you’d like to take the first step toward redemption, you can fetch me a refill.”

Vanessa thought she felt him watching her. Again. But when she turned in that direction—and all day she’d known exactly where he stood, sat, lounged—she found her imagination was playing tricks. Again.

This time he was intent in conversation with Liz Kramer. With his head dipped toward the shorter woman so a lock of sun-tinged hair fell across his forehead, he looked younger and warmer and more at ease than Vanessa had seen him. Then someone moved and blocked her view and she turned away, heart racing and her mouth gone dry.

Anxiety, she decided. And trepidation because of what he might be discussing with Liz and with countless others before her.

And who are you kidding?

Not her pragmatic self, obviously. She knew these responses had nothing to do with their conflict and everything to do with the man.

Was he ignoring her on purpose?

No, Ms. Pragmatist answered. He is doing what he set out to do. Mixing, meeting, talking. And learning absolutely nothing because there was nothing for him to discover—at least nothing that wasn’t rumor and whispers about her secretive side.

Thinking of the talk her friends had told her about took her mind off Tristan, at least. Not that being talked about was a biggie for Vanessa—she’d grown up with fingers pointed her way. That’s the girl with the freakoid brother. Did you hear her daddy got arrested again last night? They’re such a loser family. She didn’t care what others said about her; she did mind that her friends might have believed her capable of infidelity.

And she hated that she’d frozen when she should have told them the reason for her mysterious behavior.

The sea of summer frocks and lightweight suits, of hats and champagne flutes and imported longneck beers shifted again, parting as if by a divine hand to reveal him again. Walking toward her, a bottle of vintage Veuve Clicquot in one hand, a pair of flutes in the other. Dressed simply in a pale gray suit and open-necked white shirt—no more, no less than a hundred other men in the crowd—he commanded attention with his size, his presence, the way he moved with an athlete’s grace and purpose.

She felt a burst of sensation, as though the pop of a champagne cork had sent all the bubbles fizzing through her veins.

Not good, Vanessa. Not good at all.

In a bid to appear involved, she turned back to Felicity and Reed, Emma and Garrett, Jack and Lily … and discovered that while she’d been lost in introspection they’d moved on. Vaguely she recalled Lily wanting to sit down. Or Jack insisting she sit. Possibly she’d waved them on.

Now she was alone. And feigning surprise when she heard the rich drawl of Tristan’s voice at her back. His actual words were swallowed by the thumping of her heart as she swung around.

He stood close enough for her to feel the impact of his electric blue gaze. A thousand watts all plugged in to her. He probably bought the whole wow-where-did-you-spring-from act because her mouth had gone slack and her throat tight and breathless while she just stood there staring up at him.

Help, her pragmatic self whimpered weakly. She feared that side of her was about to go down for the count.

“I noticed your lack of champagne.” The corner of his mouth quirked in a kind of crooked half smile. “I gather that’s a transgression here.”

The only transgression she could think of was her weak-kneed, weak-willed desire for a man she’d declared her enemy five days ago. How could this be happening?

That deadly attractive half smile had turned quizzical and Vanessa gave herself a mental shake. “Thank you,” she said, a trifle huskily. “But no.”

“This bottle is straight from Liz Kramer’s stash, just opened, unspiked. Scout’s honor.”

“So you say, but you don’t look like a Boy Scout. Can I trust your word?”

Something flickered in his eyes and in her blood. Perhaps that was the last gurgle of Ms. Pragmatist going under, because she appeared to be flirting with him. She, Vanessa Kotzur Thorpe, who had never flirted in her life.

He filled one of the slender glasses, then handed her the bottle. She regarded it suspiciously. “Take it,” he said. “So I can defend my Boy Scout honor.”

Their fingers brushed as she took the bottle, a thrilling little contact of skin on skin. She had barely recovered when he lifted the glass to his mouth. Their eyes met over the rim as he took a long, slow sip and the connection somehow seemed steeped in intimacy.

Without breaking eye contact, without saying a word, he held out the glass and temptation whispered through her blood. She wanted to take it from his hand, to place her lips on the same spot, to taste his heat on the icy cool glass.

More, she wanted to stretch on her toes and lick the golden chill from his lips. To kiss him the way she’d wanted to the first time.

“You still don’t trust me?”

Vanessa wet her lips. “It’s not that. I’m not drinking.”

“Driving?”

“I don’t drink.” She volunteered the information without thought … and then kicked herself sharply. Pay attention. She didn’t want to explain why she never touched alcohol, nor did she want to see in his eyes that he’d worked out the reason by snooping into her background.

She switched her gaze to the game, pretending to watch without seeing anything but a blur of activity. A team of monkeys mounted on camels could have taken to the field and she wouldn’t have noticed … although she supposed they’d have needed extra-long-handled mallets.

After a moment the thick ache in her chest reminded her to relax and breathe. Today Tristan appeared relaxed, as if he were enjoying this as a social occasion rather than as an investigative opportunity. Perhaps he’d taken her appeal outside the Marabella to heart.

Perhaps he was biding his time.

Play thundered by close to the sideline and the air thickened with the scent of sweat and earth and the clash of contact between players. Vanessa blinked and focused. The umpire blew a foul eliciting a heated debate on who’d crossed whose line on the ball.

“How are you enjoying the polo?” she asked, genuinely curious.

“I like the game.”

“But not the rest?”

He considered that a long moment, appearing to give it more weight than the casual inquiry commanded. “I’m enjoying today more than I’d thought. I hadn’t realized so many people would remember me or want to know me. Given your popularity, I thought I might be the pariah.”

“You’re not?”

His small smile caused a large clamor in her system. “Can’t say I haven’t felt some coolness.”

“Which hasn’t dulled the curiosity.”

“No.”

Vanessa cast a glance over the crowd and found a degree of that curiousity trained on them. Many of the locals—her friends included—would be conjecturing over her chumminess with the enemy. A frown pulled at her brow so she considered the changed dynamic between them. She couldn’t work out what had changed. The heat, the awareness, the attraction, she’d felt before, but today there was another element she couldn’t pin down.

They weren’t exactly comfortable and relaxed together but the tension had altered.

It reminded her of the one time she’d sat on a horse. The riding lessons were a birthday present from Stuart, but when the instructor hoisted her into the saddle she hadn’t enjoyed the sensation one little bit. She’d hated losing touch with earth, of not knowing if the exhilaration would last or bring her crashing onto her backside.

She cast a cautious sideways glance at Tristan and caught him watching her. A weird sense of yearning fluttered to life in her chest, and her frown deepened as she quickly looked away. Oh yes, Ms. Pragmatist nodded. You are so going to land on your backside.

“Worried about what they’re thinking?” he asked.

“Well, I am fraternizing with the enemy.”

“I’m not the enemy, Vanessa.” He eyes on hers were darkly serious. “Your real enemy is the person who wrote that letter.”

Vanessa lost Tristan to Delia during the halftime divot-stomp and didn’t see him again—no, that wasn’t true, she couldn’t help seeing him, but she didn’t talk to him again—until she was walking toward her car at the end of the day. This time her wow-where-did-you-spring -from reaction wasn’t contrived. One second she was picking her way carefully across a soggy patch of ground, trying not to identify the heavy weight pressing down on her chest as going-home-alone gloom, the next he was there at her side.

The weight lifted leaving her feeling ridiculously pleased … until she felt his gaze fix on her smile for an unnervingly long moment. Then she thought, must stop grinning like a loon. Must think of something to say that doesn’t sound like I’m ridiculously, pleased.

“Did you enjoy the second half?” she asked, getting the smile under control. “I lost you during the break.”

“I didn’t know they really did that.”

“Walk the divots? It’s a time-honored tradition and the perfect chance to mix. Don’t they do that at your Aussie football games?”

“Our mixer tradition is aimed at the kids. They all flock onto the ground for a kick at halftime.”

Picturing the mayhem of hundreds of kids let lose on a football field, Vanessa allowed herself a half smile. “Slightly wilder and noisier than a divot-stomp, I imagine.”

“Slightly.”

“You looked as if you were enjoying yourself.” Straight away she wished she’d kept that observation to herself. She also wished that the sight of Delia hanging off his arm, laughing, reaching up to brush something—or nothing—from his collar wasn’t stuck in her visual memory. She had no hold on him and no right to the sharp stab of possessiveness.

“I enjoyed today,” he said noncommittally.

“You seemed to fit right in.”

He cut her a sideways look, as though trying to work out if she was having him on. Then something shifted in his expression, his gaze grew keen with perception. “And you, Vanessa. You fit in as if you were born to this life.”

The warm glow of enjoyment brought on by his seeking her out and fanned by their banter, faded and died. But she might as well confirm what he’d probably already gleaned from Gloria or who knows where else. “My parents both worked for people like these, in the city. I spent some time observing the life.”

“And you dreamed of living it?”

She shrugged. “What girl doesn’t dream? It’s the Cinderella fantasy.”

They stopped beside her car, the last left in this row of the parking field, and she was searching her purse for her keys when he asked, “Why my father?”

Vanessa looked up sharply, not quite sure she’d heard him correctly. If she had, then she didn’t understand the question. Intense blue eyes collided with hers for a heart-jolting moment before he looked away.

Before he waved a hand at the field still littered with Bentleys and Porsches and Mercedes. “You wanted this life, you could have had it with any man you wanted. Why my father?”

For a second she stared back at him, stunned by the question and then by its subtext. She’d set out to trap a rich man because of a childhood Cinderella fantasy. Then she kicked herself hard for her stupidity.

She’d known he held that opinion right from the first time she spoke to him, so why should the question shock her now?

“I hope to God I’m reading you wrong,” she said tightly, “and that you’re not suggesting I could have done better than Stuart.”

“Not better. Younger.”

“Because a younger man could have given me what?” She huffed out a contemptuous breath. “For the life of me I cannot think of any man—younger, older, whatever—as kind and generous and concerned for others as Stuart Thorpe.”

“What about your other needs, Vanessa?”

His meaning was clear in the dark burning light in his eyes, in the way he closed down the distance between them, in the sexual energy that seemed to pulse in the air as his gaze trailed slowly over her face and lingered on her mouth.

She shook her head slowly. This part of her marriage she discussed with no one. Not Gloria, not Andy, not Emma or Lily or any of her girlfriends. She’d promised to keep the platonic nature of their relationship a secret, to protect Stuart’s pride as a man and to prevent the scuttlebutt of gossip.

“You’re young,” he persisted. “Didn’t you want a family?”

“No.”

It wasn’t a lie, despite her recent pangs of baby envy. She’d already brought up her brother, taking over his care when she was little more than a child herself. She’d used up all her nurturing spirit. She had no emotional energy left for babies of her own. None whatsoever.

“No,” she repeated, more adamantly. “I didn’t want a family and I didn’t need a lover. Your father gave me everything I wanted, everything I ever dreamed of wanting, and more. And he chose to leave his estate to me. Why can’t you accept those truths? Why can’t you go back to Australia and let me be?”




Seven


Go home to Australia and let her be?

No, Tristan couldn’t do that. He could never quit a task half-done.

He still needed to know everything about Vanessa, but before he even approached her in the parking lot after the polo match he’d accepted that his motivation had shifted focus.

That’s what drove him to ask why she’d chosen his father.

Frustration. Self-defense. Finding that full-bodied smile trained on him for the very first time, he’d felt a primal rush of possessiveness, a she-should-be-mine kick that transcended desire. He’d needed a reminder, damn fast, of why he couldn’t get in that car and drive her back to his hotel and claim her as his own.

Her fervent response had done the trick. It had also convinced him of one of two things: either Vanessa had genuinely cared for her husband or she was one bloody fine actress.

And if he was out-of-the-ballpark wrong about her relationship with his father, was he wrong about other things?

Questions and conflicting answers chased through his mind all night long. At dawn he plunged his restless body into the hotel pool and slugged out a hundred laps. Afterward he’d intended returning to his suite and to his regular, controllable Monday morning of work, where questions had answers, where decisions triggered action, where results ensued.

Where he never backed down from the tough issues … or from digging too deeply because of a woman’s heartfelt appeal. I’m asking that you respect the privacy of others. Think about it, please. Think about doing the right thing.

That plea still had his conscience tied in knots a week later.

Instead of working, he found himself driving out of town and into the sprawling midcountry estates, heading for White Birch Lane and a score of knotted intangibles. He needed facts. He needed truths.

Not only about Vanessa, but about the father he’d not spoken to since he left Eastwick as a twelve-year-old.

Focused on that result, he didn’t consider the early hour until he was driving up to the closed and silent mansion. It was too early for her to be gone for the day but not too early, he discovered, to find her in the garden.

The morning sun was less than an hour old, its light as pale as her hair. As diaphanous as the shell-pink sweep of nothing that shaped her body. The image was soft and ethereal, an artist’s rendition of Girl with Flowers, and Tristan stood transfixed by her beauty for a minute too long. Twenty yards of lawn and several bays of massed rose bushes away, he sensed her sudden stillness and the shock in her eyes when his presence registered.

The polite thing to do was acknowledge her, maybe with a teasing remark about wandering the grounds in her negligée, then retreat so she could dress in something more … substantial. The sensible thing was to turn on his heel and get the hell out of there without taking any more notice about what she was wearing or not wearing.

But he had noticed. His body ached with its impolite and not-sensible response to noticing.

The best he could do was keep a bed of rose bushes between them as he approached, an extra thorny-branched barrier to the one he was busy erecting in his mind.

She’s out of bounds. She loved your father. She was his wife for five years.

No matter what resulted from their legal wrangle, from the letter’s allegations, from his investigations, she could never be his.

The massed shrubs shielded much of her body from view, but it didn’t help. He could still see her face, her throat, the skin framed by lace at her shoulders and breasts. And he could see what had brought her out of doors so early.

One of her gloved hands held a bunch of long-stemmed blooms; the other wielded a pair of lethal-looking shears. The part of his body that had noticed the diaphanous nightdress and the shape of her body beneath took due note.

“I hope I didn’t startle you too much. Those things—” he inclined his head to indicate the shears “—look like they could do serious damage.”

“I heard you drive up, so no.”

“Yet you looked surprised.”

“I thought you were Gloria, arriving early.”

Her accompanying shrug caused her negligee’s deep neckline to dip, and Tristan’s hand itched to reach out and slide it back into place. With a silent curse he shoved both hands in his pockets, out of temptation’s way. “I’m not Gloria.”

“No,” she said, as soft as the morning. “You’re not.”

Their gazes meshed for what felt like a long time. He could feel the pulse of attraction between them, a silent energy that hummed in the summer’s morning. She felt it too—he could see it in her eyes and in the slight flush of her cheeks.

Hell. She felt it too.

He buried his hands deeper in his shorts. “I should have called first.”

“It’s fine, really.”

“Really?”

“You saved me a phone call.” A frown of concentration formed between her brows and turned her eyes serious. “I wanted to talk to you about what I said yesterday … or what I didn’t say.”

“About?”

“Your father. The will. I’m not backing down on anything I said, but on my way home yesterday and last night and this morning I was thinking—” She paused and although her eyes were clear, the dark smudges beneath flagged her lack of sleep. “I may have given the impression that Stuart didn’t want you to have anything. That is not true.”

“He left me a thousand bucks. To show he hadn’t forgotten me.”

“That was the lawyers’ doing and not what I meant. He would have made you a beneficiary, Tristan, if you’d come to see him when he asked.”

“Guess I must have missed that.”

“I guess so,” she said with a damn-you note to her voice. With great care she snipped off another pink bud and added it to her collection. The petals quavered—because her hands were shaking?—and when she looked up again, her eyes glistened with moisture. “Ignoring his letter, not even bothering to reply—that was just plain cruel, Tristan. He was your father and he was dying. Would it have hurt to swallow your pride and pick up the phone?”

Hit hard by the husky edge to her voice and the sheen of emotion in her eyes, it took a moment for the words and the message to register. Then everything inside him went still. “What letter?”

“He wanted to see you or at least to speak to you, to explain his side of the story. I suggested he write—that he might find that easier than trying to explain over the phone.”

“And he sent it?”

“I posted it myself.” She stared back at him, at first with that same hard edge as earlier and then with slowly dawning comprehension. “You really didn’t receive it, did you? And when I tried to call …”

He’d deliberately stonewalled her, not taking the calls and then not returning her increasingly insistent messages until it was too late. His father had passed away an hour before.

What-might-have-been frustration swelled inside him, tightening his chest, his throat, his expression. “If he wanted to talk to me so badly, why the hell did he leave it so late?”

“Because he was as proud and as stubborn as you! He poured his heart and his soul into that letter and when you didn’t reply, when he got nothing but stony silence, he gave up.”

“But you didn’t.”

In her eyes, he saw that truth. She’d pushed Stuart to write the letter. And she’d made those calls when his father was hospitalized, a last ditch effort to reconcile them: the husband she’d loved and his only child.

“That’s when he made up his mind about the will.” Carefully she closed the shears and clicked the safety lock into place. The metallic snick punctuated the finality of his father’s decision. Closed, done, ended. “He said you’d made your own life in Australia. You were a success. You didn’t need his money and you didn’t need him.”

She was right. At thirty his time of needing a father had long passed into a faded, bitter memory of the years when he’d silently yearned for that support. Even if he had read the letter or if he’d taken her calls, he doubted it would have led to anything but cold, hard words. “Too little, too late.”

For a moment he thought she might dispute that, but then she changed tack—he saw the switch in her expression and the set of her mouth as she gathered up her bunch of cut roses and started to move off. “You might not believe this,” she said, “but he never forgot you were his son. He told me once how glad he was that your football career took off, because that made it so easy to keep up the connection. The more your star rose, the more stories he found in the press.”

“His son, the famous footballer.”

A vehement spark lit her eyes. “It wasn’t like that, Tristan! Of course he was proud of your success—what parent wouldn’t be? But this was about knowing some part of you, about having that connection. He learned all about your Aussie Rules game and he read all the match reports and stats. He watched the games on cable.

“One night I found him sitting in the dark, in the theater room where he watched the games. And the television was showing, I don’t know, ice-skating or rhythmic gymnastics or something I knew he wouldn’t watch. I thought he’d gone to sleep so I turned on the light to rouse him and send him back to bed.”

She paused in a gap between two heavily-laden bushes, her expression as soft as the mass of creamy-pink roses that framed her slender curves. And, damn it her eyes had gone all dewy again. He braced himself, against the punch-to-the-heart sensation the sight of her caused and against whatever she was about to tell him.

“He didn’t turn around because he didn’t want me to see his tears, but I heard them in his voice. I knew he was sitting there in the dark crying. He told me later that you’d been playing your two hundredth game and they’d run a special on you during the halftime break. He was so proud and I was so damn mad at you both for not doing something about your rift.”

Rift? The gap between him and his father had been more in the scope of a canyon. If there’d ever been any chance of bridging it … “That was up to him.”

“Would you have listened?”

For several seconds they stood, gazes locked, the atmosphere taut with that one telling question. And when he didn’t answer, she shook her head sadly. “I didn’t think so.”

“It makes no difference.”

“You’re that callous?”

“I am what I am.”

She nodded slowly. And the disappointment in her eyes hit him like a full-throttle shoulder charge. “You are also more like your father than you know.”

“Kind. Generous. Concerned,” he quoted back at her.

“Proud. Stubborn. Unprepared to step back from your line in the sand.” Her eyes narrowed with a mixture of challenge and speculation. “Why is the inheritance so important to you? Your success at football carried on into business. You just sold your company, advantageously, I gather. You can’t need the money.”

“Money isn’t everything, duchess.”

“Is it the house you want?” she persisted, ignoring his gibe. “Does it have special meaning?”

“Not any more. Does it to you?”

“It meant a lot to Stuart, so, yes.”

“I’m asking about you.” And even as he asked the question, he felt its significance tighten in his chest. “Is this your idea of home, Vanessa?”

“It’s the only place I’ve ever felt happy to call home.”

“You’re happy here, living this life?”

She looked him square in the eye. “Yes, I am. I work hard on fund-raising committees. I love the volunteering work I do.”

“A regular philanthropist, are you?”

It was a cheap shot but she took it on the chin without flinching. He sensed, in the briefest of pauses before she responded, that she’d taken a lot of hits in her life. That she was a lot less delicate than she looked. “I do what I can. And just so there are no misconceptions—I like most everything about my life. I like the security of money, of knowing all my needs are taken care of.”

“Not to mention the things that money can buy.”

“I don’t care about the things.”

Really? “You told me you love your car. Your clothes aren’t from Wal-Mart. And what about the trinkets?” Forgetting the self-defensive caution that had driven him to keep a garden’s width between them, he rounded the end of the bay and closed down that separation. “If things don’t matter, then why were you so upset when the figurine smashed?”

“It was a gift.”

“From Stuart?”

A shadow flitted across her expression but her gaze remained clear and unwavering and disarmingly honest.

“A New York socialite my mother worked for gave me that figurine for my twelfth birthday.”

“Generous of her.”

“Yes and no. It was nothing to her but a kind gesture to the housemaid’s poor daughter. But to me … that little statue became my talisman. I kept it as a reminder of where it came from and where I came from. But, you know, it doesn’t matter that it broke.” She gave a little shrug. “I don’t need it anymore.”

Maybe not, but there was something about her explanation’s matter-of-fact tone that belied the lingering shadows in her eyes. She could shrug it off all she wanted now, but he’d been there. He’d witnessed the extent of her distress.

Damn it all to blazes, he’d caused it by backing her into the corner and shocking her with his kiss.

And here he was, forgetting himself again. Standing too close, infiltrating her personal space, breathing the sweet scent of roses and aching with the need to take her in his arms, to touch her petal-soft skin, to kiss every shadowed memory from her eyes and every other man from her rose-pink lips.

The physical desire he understood and could handle. It had been there from the outset, crackling in the air whenever they got too close. But this was more—dangerously, insidiously more—when he needed less.

“You mightn’t need it,” he said gruffly, “but it matters.”

“No. What matters is how Stuart wanted his wealth distributed. We talked about this—about which charities and the best way to help—but everything is tied up because of your legal challenge. Why are you doing this?” Her eyes darkened with determination. “Why, Tristan? Is it only about winning? Is it only about defeating me?”

“This isn’t about you.”

“Then what is it about?”

The first time she’d asked about his motivation, Tristan had turned it into a cross-examination. And she’d answered every one of his questions with honesty. The least he could do was offer equal candor. “It’s about justice, Vanessa.”

“Justice for whom?”

“My mother.” He met her puzzled eyes. “Did you know she got nothing from my parents’ divorce?”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Deadly. After fifteen years of marriage … nothing.”

“Is that how you count yourself, Tristan? As nothing?” Her voice rose with abject disbelief. “Is that how your mother counted what she took from Stuart?”

He’d heard the same message from Liz Kramer. She took you, Tristan, the most valuable thing.

But the other side to that equation set his jaw and his voice with hard-edged conviction. “She counted herself lucky to gain full custody.” Except to do so, to prevent an ugly court battle and a possible injunction preventing her move to Australia, she’d ceded her claim on a property settlement. “I guess that kind of payoff made me worth a hell of a lot.”

For a long moment his words hung between them, a cynically-edged statement that conveyed more of his past hurt than he’d intended. He could see that by her reaction, by the softening in her expression and the husky note in her voice. “He thought Andrea would reject that offer. He thought they would negotiate and reach an agreement of shared property and shared custody. He didn’t want to lose you, Tristan.”

“Then why didn’t he fight to keep me?”

She shook her head sadly. “He didn’t want to take you from your mother. It broke his heart to lose his whole family like that.”

“He kicked us out. He divorced my mother. His choices, Vanessa.”

“I was under the impression that Andrea was at fault,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “That she had an affair … which Stuart found out about and forgave. The first time.”

Tristan went still. “What do you mean, the first time?”

“I mean …” She paused, her face wreathed in uneasiness. “How much of this do you know? I’m not sure it’s my place—”

“You don’t think I need to hear this?”

She nodded once, a brief concession to his point, and moistened her lips. “He took her back because he still loved her and because she promised it was a once-only thing, because she was lonely, he was working too hard. He took her back and when she announced she was pregnant, he was ecstatic.”

“I know the twins aren’t Stuart’s,” he reassured her grimly. “I know they’re only my half sisters.”

“And that’s what broke his heart, don’t you see? She never told him. She let him believe they were his and she kept seeing the father before they were born and afterward.

When he caught her out again, when he did the paternity test and discovered the truth … that’s why the marriage ended, Tristan. And that’s why Stuart felt so strongly about adultery.”

He didn’t have to believe her but he did. It made too much sense not to. It tied everything together in a neat bow … and brought them looping back to his reason for being here in Eastwick. His reason for wanting, so vehemently, to defeat her.

“That’s why he added that clause to his will,” he said slowly. Not a question, but a statement.

Not because he suspected Vanessa of cheating, as Tristan had believed, but because of his own mother’s infidelity. Not one mistake, as she’d led Tristan to believe, but repeated betrayals. Which put her subsequent choices into perspective, too.

Her acceptance of the divorce settlement.

Her flight to Australia, in pursuit of the twins’ father.

Her objection to his challenge of Stuart’s will.

“Does Andrea know why you’re doing this? Is it what she wants?”

Vanessa’s soft voice cut straight into his thought process, as if she’d read his mind.

And when he didn’t answer, she added, “I thought as much.”

That jolted him hard. The initial questions, the way she’d read him so accurately, the knowledge that she’d turned his beliefs inside out.

Yet this had been his pursuit for two years, his conviction for longer. He would not toss it without hearing the truth from his mother. Not without considering all he’d learned this morning, away from the influence of steady green eyes and rose-scented skin.

Resolve tightened his features as he nodded to her bundle of flowers. “Shouldn’t you be putting those in water?”

She blinked with surprise, as if she’d been so intent on their discussion that she’d forgotten her morning’s purpose. “I … yes.”

“I need to go. I have some decisions to make.”

Hope fluttered like a bird’s wing in her eyes. “You’ll let me know … once you’ve decided.”

“You’ll be the first.”

He nodded goodbye and had gone maybe ten strides before she called his name. He paused. Turned to look over his shoulder and was floored again by the picture she made with the sunlight silhouetting her body and legs through that filmy pink robe.

Like the roses, he figured she’d forgotten her state of dress. Or undress. For both their sakes, he wasn’t about to point out what was clearly defined by the unforgiving light.

“The letter I told you about, from your father—I kept a copy. It’s yours, Tristan. If you like, I can go and get it for you.”




Eight


After Vanessa offered him the letter, Tristan had stood staring at her down the paved path, face and body both set hard and still as a Grecian statue. There’d been a dizzy moment when her imagination played memory tricks, stripping away his clothes to reveal sun-gilded skin and rippling pool-wet muscles. When he pointed out—his voice dark and quietly dangerous—that if she were going to fetch anything, it should be more clothes, she’d shaken her head with confusion.

How did he know she was picturing him near-naked? Was she that transparent?

One slow sweep of his shuttered gaze and she realized that, yes, courtesy of the sun’s backlighting, she was pretty darn transparent.

Oh, she’d played down her discomfiture. Ignoring any reference to clothing, she’d lifted her chin and invited him to wait in the foyer while she located the letter and a file box of photos and clippings and other memorabilia Stuart had kept.

At first she’d thought he wouldn’t bother taking them. Later she’d decided that his lack of response as she pushed them into his hands was all a crock. Vanessa understood the pretense. She, too, was a master at hiding her heart.

With an offhand shrug and a polite thanks he took them, presumably back to his hotel.

Vanessa should have been overjoyed to see the back of him and that morning’s intense emotional drama. She should have been thrilled that they’d finally talked through some of the misunderstandings and misinformation, and that he might now reconsider his stance on the will. But, no, his departure had left her feeling hollow and restless and anxious, her mind buzzing with more questions.

Twice she picked up the phone, once her car keys and purse, with a view to pressing him for answers. Did he have any ideas on who had written the letter that brought him to Eastwick? Would he continue to investigate its allegations? Or was his challenge of the will now over?

But she forced herself to wait. He needed time to digest Stuart’s heartfelt words, to come to grips with the truth of his split from Andrea and their subsequent custody settlement.

The hollowness in her middle grew into a raw ache when she thought about what he’d believed and what his mother had let him believe. From experience, Vanessa knew that twelve was a vulnerable age to have a parent cut from your life. To go through that in a new country, in a new school, without your friends, believing you’d been traded like a chattel in your parents’ divorce …

She hadn’t looked at this from Tristan’s side before. So much about the man now made sense. Those hard edges, his drive to succeed, this pursuit of an inheritance he didn’t need. It wasn’t all about doing the right thing by his mother; it was also about himself and the father he’d believed didn’t want him.

She could almost forgive him his resentment. If only he’d returned her calls or given her a chance to explain earlier, they could have avoided all this. And that thought added to her turmoil while she waited to discover what would happen next.

Tuesday morning she forced herself to push aside another restless night and her frustrating angst as she set about her usual routine … although she did take care to dress this time, before venturing out into the garden. Tuesday was one of her regular days at Twelve Oaks, and she cut enough blooms for several arrangements at the grand house and put them in water.

Next, she headed to the kitchen and mixed a double batch of chocolate cherry muffins. The precise processes involved in baking always calmed her. Picturing her brother’s blissed-out grin when he opened the container and discovered his favorite treat always brought a smile to her face. It still hovered—a happy curve of affection—when the timer chimed and she pulled the baking trays from the oven.

They’d turned out perfectly. Her smile broadened with satisfaction. Then she turned and looked up, and everything—her smile, her brain, her legs—froze.

But only for a split second. The instant their gazes connected she felt an ungoverned rush of heat all the way from her quick fix ponytail to her freshly painted toes.

“Where did you spring from?” she asked, her voice husky with astonishment. And, yes, a note of pleasure because of the way Tristan was looking at her and because, well, simply because he was here.

“Gloria let me in. I followed her up the drive.”

Vanessa had been so absorbed in her task she hadn’t heard the housekeeper’s arrival. After depositing the trays on cooling racks, she put a hand to her rapidly beating heart. “This is two mornings in a row you’ve sneaked up on me. You have to stop doing that.”

“Just evening up the score. You surprise me all the time.” He paused, taking in the sunshine yellow dress she’d chosen to empower her mood, before his gaze returned to her face. “Although at least today you’re dressed.”

Which did nothing to hide her reaction to the appreciation in his eyes or the satisfaction of knowing she surprised him. She felt the flush rolling through her skin and the tightening of her nipples against the lace of her bra. Today she might be dressed, but she had no bouquet of roses to hide behind.

“Where’s Gloria?” she asked, shifting the conversation to neutral ground.

“Putting away the … things … you loaned me.”

The letter and photos? Her eyes widened. “Oh, no. You didn’t have to return them. They are yours to keep.”

“I don’t need them.”

“Maybe, but I want you to have them. Stuart would have wanted that.”

Something quickened in his eyes, a flash of emotion, of sorrow or regret, but he lifted a shoulder and it was gone. Shed like a stray leaf.

He strolled farther into the room and inclined his head toward the marble island. “You bake?”

So. He didn’t want to talk about the letter or his father. Vanessa’s stomach dipped with disappointment. But what could she do? Perhaps if he stayed a while, perhaps if she went along with the teasing note to his question and kept it light, she could steer the conversation back.

“Yes, I bake.” She arched her eyebrows at the racks of cooling muffins. “Behold the evidence.”

Palms flattened on the countertop, he leaned over to breathe the rich aroma. His eyes rose up to hers, and the look of sybaritic pleasure on his face turned her knees to jelly. “Chocolate chip?”

“Chocolate cherry. With coconut.”

“Are they as good as they smell?”

Showing off a bit, she deftly loosened the first batch of muffins and turned them onto the cooling rack. A dozen, each one perfectly formed. She looked up and smiled. “Better.”

“Do you cook anything else?”

“I know my way around a kitchen.”

He chuckled, and that unexpected appreciation did nothing to help strengthen Vanessa’s jelly-knees. “Maybe I should have taken Frank’s prompt and angled to come stay here instead of the Marabella.”

“Oh, I don’t think that would have been a good idea,” she countered. “The two of us trying to share a house.”

It was only banter, deliberately lighthearted as they danced around the reason for his visit and the topic she desperately wanted to address. But in the short hesitation before he answered, Vanessa caught the glimmer of heat in his eyes and the mood changed. An unspoken acknowledgment of their attraction stretched between them, as palpable as the rich scent of oven-warm chocolate.

“No,” he said, much too seriously. “Not a good idea.”

To break the tension, she offered him coffee. Perhaps, then, she could broach the question of what next.

“Do I get anything with the coffee?”

Muffins, Ms. Pragmatist muttered in her ear. He’s talking about muffins. “I guess I can spare you one.”

“The rest being for …?”

Fussing with the coffee making, she answered automatically. “The guys at Twelve Oaks.”

“This is the place where you volunteer? Where your friend Andy works?”

“Yes.”

“Interesting name. Twelve Oaks.”

Vanessa looked up sharply. Nothing showed in his expression beyond curiosity but, still, she was so used to not talking about Twelve Oaks, to protecting this part of her life from scrutiny. “That’s the name of the estate,” she explained carefully. “A grand old Georgian home with separate servants’ quarters and stables and a small farm. The owner willed it to a foundation that worked with the developmentally disabled and they developed it into a residential facility.”

“What do you do there?”

“I help the therapists. Tuesdays it’s with arts and crafts. On Thursdays we cook.” She rolled her eyes. “Chick stuff.”

He didn’t counter with a teasing quip as she’d imagined, and she felt him looking at her differently, with a new respect or admiration that she did not deserve. If not for Lew, she would never have known about Twelve Oaks. She would never have gotten involved.

“I don’t do very much, as it happens, and what I do is not exactly selfless.”

“How long is your session this morning?”

Frowning at his question—where had that come from?—she looked up and got tangled in the intentness of his blue, blue eyes. “Does it matter?”

“I had this idea of going with you.” He let go a huff of breath. “Bad idea.”

“Why?”

“I have a plane to catch this afternoon.”




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