Читать книгу Fortune's Secret Husband - Karen Rose Smith - Страница 9
ОглавлениеChase felt as if he’d been kicked in the gut. Lucie Fortune Chesterfield was even more beautiful now than she’d been at seventeen. That glossy, dark-brown hair and those expressive hazel eyes... He remembered the dimple that only appeared when she smiled, but she wasn’t smiling now. She looked worried and upset and very pale.
She confirmed some of his conclusion when she warned him, “Come up to my apartment so no one overhears us or sees us.”
She was obviously worried about information getting into the wrong hands. He knew the paparazzi hounded her family. Put an earl in your background, or a sir, as in Sir Simon Chesterfield, her father, and the press thought the whole world wanted to read about you. Maybe they did.
Lucie pressed the elevator button with an impatient finger as she snuck a glance at him. He wanted to smile at her, but he had a feeling this was no smiling matter.
“We’ll get it worked out,” he said in a low voice.
Chase had been twenty-one and a group leader when he and Lucie had secretly married in Scotland. There, at seventeen, Lucie hadn’t needed permission. However, another member of her tour group had caught them disrobed in Chase’s hostel room and reported them. Chase’s father had swooped in with a lawyer and confidentiality agreements with promises of an annulment. Everyone had been sworn to secrecy.
When the elevator doors swished open, Lucie didn’t respond. Maybe she was so upset because of her sister’s recent scandal. He’d read the tabloids about Amelia’s status as a run-away fiancée and that she’d become pregnant from a cowboy lover. That had probably made Lucie even more skittish of public opinion. The tabloids ran with stories that weren’t even true. He knew that. Though he had followed Lucie’s engagement a few years ago with interest, and couldn’t help being irrationally relieved when it had come to naught.
When Chase’s elbow brushed hers, Lucie stepped away. He found himself taking a step closer. He was stabbed by the same desire for her now that he’d felt at twenty-one. Yet he was sure she must hate or resent him because of the way they’d been broken up...because of the way his father had handled it. After all, she’d never answered his letters.
When they stepped off the elevator, Lucie motioned to the left. Chase noted there were two apartments on the floor. “I’m surprised you don’t have a penthouse. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about nosy neighbors.”
“I don’t have to worry about nosy neighbors.” She took her keys from her purse and unlocked her apartment door. “The other apartment is rented by a businessman who travels a lot. He’s in Hong Kong right now for the month while I’m here. So I basically have the floor alone. Win-win all around.”
She’d made her voice light and airy, but he had a feeling nothing was light and airy. There was a note of anxiety beneath her words.
After she unlocked the door and he stepped inside the apartment’s foyer, he gave a quick glance around. “This doesn’t look like you,” he said automatically.
She gave him an odd look. “How do you know? You’ve had nothing to do with me for ten years.”
That sounded like an accusation, but he didn’t stop to wonder about it. The apartment was decorated in chrome and glass, black and white. There was a row of flowered throw pillows on the sofa and he wondered if Lucie had added those.
“You weren’t chrome and glass at seventeen, and I doubt very much if you are now.”
“I’m only going to be here a month, Chase. The sublet was furnished. Now tell me, why are we still married?” She went over to the sofa and sank down on it, motioning for him to do the same.
He rounded the long, glass-topped coffee table and lowered himself beside her, careful not to let any parts of their bodies touch. He didn’t know why, but it just seemed to be the wise thing. Discarding that sentimental thought, he gazed into her eyes and wisdom seemed to fly out the window. This was Lucie, the girl who had stolen his heart. But then he snapped his thinking back to what it should be. She was a public figure now and here only for a month.
He explained quickly, “I applied for a business loan separate from my father’s company. It has nothing to do with him.”
He saw the remembrance pass through her eyes that he’d once told her he’d never work for his father and never be anything like him. Circumstances had changed that, but now they were going to change again.
“After I filled out all the paperwork at the bank,” he went on, “the loan officer called me to tell me I needed my wife’s signature before they could put the payment through. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. My parents said our marriage was annulled. But then I did research of my own and discovered it is still on the books. I wanted to tell you in person in case the information leaked out and somehow made the tabloids. I know how much your family has been hounded by the media.”
Lucie looked even paler. In fact, she looked ill, as if she might faint.
“Are you all right? Can I get you something? I don’t want you to pass out.”
She straightened her shoulders and tossed her hair back. “I’ve never passed out in my life, though this might be a good time.”
Apparently she still had a sense of humor. Right now, though, he didn’t think it made either of them feel better.
“Did you see the media storm my sister went through?” she asked.
Chase nodded. “I did. And I don’t want us to experience anything like it. That’s why I’m here. To tell the truth, I’d never be caught dead shirtless outside my house with a shotgun aimed at reporters like Quinn Drummond.”
Quinn was Amelia’s husband, a cowboy commoner in the eyes of everyone but Amelia and now her family.
“He was driven to it,” Lucie protested. “You can’t imagine what it’s like living in a fishbowl with every decision or faux pas analyzed to death by the media.”
Chase felt disgruntled at her assessment. Maybe he really didn’t know what it was like. “I understand your concerns. My parents and I can’t understand what happened with the annulment. My father maintains that he had the marriage dissolved. It must have been a snafu in the paperwork. He and I have spoken with our family’s lawyer, as well as an international attorney. We’re going to settle this as soon as possible. If I have to, I’ll get a whole law firm on it.”
Lucie wasn’t looking at him but rather at the wall. She seemed to be in a daze. Maybe he should stay a little while. On the other hand, maybe he should go quickly. He handed her another business card.
She started. “I have your card.”
But he shook his head. “You have my personal one. This is the ranch card. Note the address for the Bar P. It’s about a half hour from here.”
“You live on your parents’ ranch?”
“I live in the guesthouse. That’s going to change soon.”
“And you work for your father?” There was surprise in her voice. He’d been right. She did remember.
“For now, but that too will be changing. It’s a long story. You have all my numbers. If you want to talk anytime, just call me.”
She studied the card and kept studying it as if she was thinking about him working at Parker Oil, as if she might be thinking about all the things that might have been.
He stood, believing she needed time to absorb the news. He had started to cross for the door when Lucie suddenly popped up from the sofa and rushed to him. She took his arm. The feel of those fingers of hers, even through his suit jacket, made his body respond.
He could tell she was a proper lady now when she said, “I’m sorry for my reaction. The shock of the news of being married to you really upset me. You must be just as upset.”
“I’m not upset. I’m just concerned about what it means for you, too. When I couldn’t find you, I panicked a bit. I didn’t want this to come out without us talking first.”
Talking. Not only talking but falling right back into memories. As he had in the elevator, he caught the scent of her perfume, light and airy. It teased him, even though she always tried to be so proper. She hadn’t been proper in bed. That was something he’d never forget—their wedding night.
“Maybe after this sinks in and we absorb it, we can have lunch or something.”
She was gazing up at him in that way she’d always had, and he thought he could tell she still felt drawn to him, just as he felt attracted to her. But it didn’t mean anything. It couldn’t. A wife was the last thing he wanted right now. He intended to buy property that was all his own and move the horse rescue operation he’d started on his family’s huge spread to his own place. This project would be all his and have nothing to do with the Parker family name. He’d owe his dad nothing but a good day’s work when he consulted with Parker Oil.
Chase stepped away from Lucie and toward the door. She didn’t follow him. Maybe she’d decided a husband was the last thing she needed, too.
He opened the door, but he couldn’t help saying, “Remember, if you want to talk, call me.” He didn’t wait for her response. He left before he stayed.
Once outside the apartment complex, he headed down the street. Unfamiliar with the building and its parking restrictions, he’d left his pickup in a public lot down the block. He headed for it now and made a decision. Instead of going to his family’s ranch, which was about a half hour away, he was going to book a hotel room near Lucie. He’d give a call to his mother later and let her know he wasn’t going to be back tonight.
His mother had persuaded him to live on the Bar P. She’d asked him to stay there after his dad’s stroke several years ago. His dad had recovered, but she lived in constant fear he’d have another stroke. She wanted Chase to keep him from overdoing it, and that was what Chase had done on all levels for the past five years. But recently, when a college friend was killed, he’d realized he had to live his own life, not the life his parents wanted him to live. The horse rescue ranch would be a first step in that direction.
Thinking again about a hotel room, he felt he needed to stay close by Lucie so she didn’t disappear again or fly off somewhere. The reason? He couldn’t get his life restarted until their situation was cleared up.
What other reason could there be?
* * *
When Lucie’s alarm woke her, she wasn’t only startled by the sound; she was startled by the dream she’d been having. It starred Chase and was anything but tame. She was still married to the man! Her subconscious had apparently been trying to process that and had inserted him naked into her dream.
She remembered his body all too well. She recalled every detail of the way he’d touched her—not simply in the dream, but on their wedding night.
“I’m still married to the man,” she repeated aloud, remembering all too well everything about it, including being sent home in shame.
Her parents had known about her reckless affair with Chase, but not the marriage. Why hurt them with an impulsive escapade that had been erased from the books? Lucie had promised Chase’s father she’d never breathe a word about any of it to anyone. After all, her family would have been embarrassed and humiliated even more if the word of her marriage ever got out. They were constantly in the public eye.
She had to talk to someone about it, and she had to talk now.
If she called her mother... First of all, she couldn’t. Her mum was in a remote village without cell phone towers for miles. Second of all, she’d tell her mother in good time. After all these years, her mum might be hurt that Lucie hadn’t told her in the first place.
Lucie sighed. The questionable decisions of youth. She’d thought the passage of time had healed all this, but she’d been wrong. Because the annulment had never gone through?
Yes, that was certainly the reason.
She’d call Amelia.
She didn’t even bother to brush her teeth first. Amelia lived on a ranch with Quinn and she’d be up early. She had a baby, so certainly she’d awake. Thinking about her niece, Clementine Rose, made Lucie miss her. She picked up her cell phone and dialed her sister.
“You’re up early,” Amelia said without preamble. “Going to look at more office spaces?”
“I wish I was. I mean, I will be. I mean—”
Lucie heard a shout...a deep male voice.
Amelia called, “I’ll be right there, Quinn. I’m on the phone.”
He must have shouted something back.
“It’s Lucie,” Amelia called back. “Can’t you get Clementine her breakfast?” A pause. Then Amelia asked Quinn, “She tossed all the cereal on the floor?”
Obviously this wasn’t a good time for Lucie to have a talk with her sister, not about something as serious as a marriage Amelia knew nothing about.
She said, “Amelia, I’ll talk to you later when you’re not so tied up.”
“Lucie, really, if you want to talk, I’m sure Quinn can handle this.”
“No, it’s okay. You two give my niece a big kiss from me. I promise I’ll hug her soon. Have a good day.”
“I’m coming,” Amelia called to Quinn. “You, too,” she said to Lucie, meaning it.
Lucie stared at the phone after she ended the call. Maybe her brother Brodie could help, in more than one way. He might be able to give her some professional advice. He was a publicist who would know how to handle this news, especially if it got out.
But when her call went through to Brodie, all she got was a voice mail message. Next, she tried her brother Jensen. He didn’t have voice mail and he didn’t pick up.
That left one person she could call. Her brother Charles, who was still in London. She found his number in her contact list and pressed Send.
“Hello, Lucie,” he said cheerily. “You’re up early.”
It was around noon in London. “I have reason to be. Do you have time for a chat?”
“With you? Sure. What’s wrong?”
“Why do you think something’s wrong?”
“You’re my sister. I know the tone of your voice. Spill it.”
Charles was the youngest son, a bit of a playboy and charming. He sometimes had trouble being serious, but he was now as he waited for her to talk about whatever it was she needed to discuss.
“Do you remember when I went to Scotland when I was seventeen?”
“Of course I do. There was a ruckus when you were sent home. My sister, who was usually an angel, the perfect sibling, had gotten herself into a mess. Mom and Dad did some fast pedaling with the press, if I remember correctly.”
“You mean, they managed to squelch the story that I was sent home from a trip because of a boy.”
“That about covers it.”
“Actually, no, that didn’t cover it. Now don’t say a word until I finish telling you everything.”
“My lips are zipped.”
Was she making a mistake telling Charles? She hoped not. “Promise me you will tell no one else until I say you can.”
“Lucie, you’re starting to scare me.”
She plunged in. “I didn’t just have an affair with Chase Parker in Scotland, I married him,” she blurted out. “But when we were caught, his father flew in, didn’t give either of us a chance to breathe and started paperwork for an annulment.”
Charles whistled.
“I’m not done,” she protested.
“Still zipped,” he assured her.
She rolled her eyes. “Chase found me and came to see me yesterday. The annulment never went through. We’re still married.”
She wasn’t exactly sure what she expected from Charles, but she definitely didn’t expect his burst of laughter.
“Oh, my gosh! Miss Goody Two-Shoes got herself into a mess. I didn’t know you had it in you.”
“Stop it,” she warned him, “or I’ll hang up right now.”
His laughter simmered down to a smile in his voice as he coaxed, “Ah, you wouldn’t hang up on me, not your favorite brother.”
“Charles—”
“Oh, Lucie. So you made a mistake and it was never rectified. That doesn’t mean it can’t be now. A good lawyer will straighten it out. What does Parker say?”
“He says he has lawyers on it, that I should call him if I need to talk, that we’ll figure this out. Charles, if this gets out to the press, Mum will be mortified. Think of the scandal. I was engaged while I was still married. All my work at the orphanages will be looked at as some hypocritical jaunt. I can’t stand the idea of it.”
“The paparazzi are one matter,” Charles agreed. “But Chase Parker is another. Are you going to call him to talk about it?”
She remembered her dream. She remembered all the feelings that went with it.
“I don’t know,” she said in a low voice.
“Lucie, are you telling me everything?”
“What do you mean?”
“What did you feel when you saw him again?”
She went back to that moment yesterday, and she didn’t want to admit what she’d felt.
“Aha!” Charles said.
“What do you mean, ‘aha’? I didn’t say anything.”
“Exactly. It was never over with this man, was it?”
“Of course it’s over. It’s been ten years.”
“Sometimes our hearts don’t count time. More than anything else, Lucie, you’d better figure out what you want. You can’t face the world with news like this with any uncertainty if it does get out.”
“I have to think. I need some time.”
Suddenly Lucie’s bedside phone rang. From caller ID, she could see that it was Irv downstairs.
“Is that your phone?” Charles asked.
“Yes, I have to get this. It’s the doorman. Someone must be downstairs. I have to go. Promise me, Charles, you won’t breathe a word of this.”
“I promise.”
She ended the call with her brother and picked up the phone. “Yes, Irv?”
“Mr. Parker is here to see you. Shall I send him up?”
“Tell him to give me five minutes,” she said, suddenly out of breath.
“Yes, Lady Lucie. I’ll make sure he gives you five minutes.”
She didn’t have time to do much, but she did have time to brush her teeth. She was wearing pink-and-white-flowered sleep pants and a pink tank. No time to think about clothes. She ran a brush through her hair and grabbed a long pink satin robe, belting it tightly.
There was a knock at her door.
She ran to it and looked through the peephole. It was Chase. Today he was dressed more casually. His chambray shirtsleeves were rolled up, and he’d left his suit jacket somewhere. She undid the chain lock and then the dead bolt. When she opened the door, she just stared at him.
Breaking out of whatever spell that came over her when she looked at him, her senses returned. “Did anyone see you down there?”
“No one was around but your doorman.”
“We have to be careful, Chase. If we’re seen together, there will be questions and gossip. If anybody finds out Irv is buzzing me to let you up, someone will investigate.”
“I get it. We’ll have to work something out,” he said, as if seeing each other might become a common occurrence. Because of paperwork? Because of resolving their situation, of course.
“We can’t be seen together here,” he reiterated. “I understand that. But certainly there are ways you go out when you don’t want to be recognized, right?”
“I have a wig.”
He nodded. “Come to breakfast with me. I know a hole in the wall, otherwise known as a truck stop, where you won’t be recognized and neither will I. There’s wonderful food there. We can talk about all this and what we’re going to do.”
She thought about it. Sometimes she did feel as if she were a captive in her apartment. Having a normal life was tough in her position. In her family, it had always been that way. Maybe that was why she’d been so reckless in Scotland when she met Chase. She just wanted to be normal. Since then, she’d accepted the fact that her life would never be that.
However, today—
“We can’t just walk out of here together,” she warned him.
He took his phone from his belt, tapped on his picture gallery and handed her the phone. “That’s a photo of my truck. It’s a blue pickup. I’ll drive into the parking garage and meet you up on the third level. Will that work?”
“That works, but I need at least ten minutes to get dressed.”
He looked her up and down. “I don’t know. What you’re wearing works for me.”
She blushed, and his grin and the sparkle in his eyes told her he was remembering when her being dressed in her robe or without her robe would have been just fine.
But that had been another time and place.
“I’ll meet you up on the third level, parking row C,” she confirmed.
“Got it,” he agreed, then went to her door and opened it. As he left, however, he threw another look to her that told her that, dressed or undressed, he still found her attractive. Just what was she going to do about that?
Fifteen minutes later, Lucie had her wig firmly in place, her sunglasses on her nose and all her wits about her. She would not let Chase rattle her. She couldn’t. There were too many consequences if she didn’t control this situation.
Finding Chase’s truck easily, she opened the passenger door and climbed inside.
Chase gave her a smile, nodded and started the engine. As he exited the parking garage, turned and drove down the street, he cut her a sideways glance. “You look hot as a redhead.”
So much for not being rattled by him. She didn’t respond.
She didn’t recognize the route he took, but then she didn’t know the city all that well yet. Ten minutes after they’d left the parking garage, he pulled up next to a gas station where several semis were fueling up. There was a restaurant attached—the Lone Star Diner.
Lucie had dressed in a more casual way than she usually did. After all, she didn’t want to be recognized. She’d worn jeans and a T-shirt and a blouse on top of that. Her auburn wig was curlier and fuller than her own hair and the chin-length strands brushed her cheeks. She had to hurry to keep up with Chase’s long strides as he led her into the diner.
“It’s totally impersonal,” he told her. “The waitresses rotate shifts, so the same ones are never on at the same time.”
“Do you come here often?”
“There are times when I like to be nameless, too. When I agreed to stay at the ranch, I told my mom I wouldn’t be there for regular meals. I didn’t want anybody keeping tabs on my comings or goings. So I drop in here now and then. The waitresses seem to have a high turnover. I haven’t run into the same one twice.”
All of that was good to know, not that she’d be coming back here again.
“The thing is,” he said in an aside to her, “this isn’t a royal kind of place.”
“I’m not a snob, Chase.”
He sobered. “That wasn’t an insult. I was just teasing.”
Yes, her sister and brothers teased her, but no one else did. She wasn’t used to it.
There were a few stools open at the counter, but Chase led her to a booth in the back, and she was glad of that. He was definitely aware of her need for anonymity.
The waitress arrived immediately and Chase said, “Two coffees and lots of cream for her.”
When the waitress moved away, he asked, “You still take it that way?”
“I do. But, you know, Chase, I’m not used to a sterling carafe to pour it from. When I go to developing countries to help with orphanages, sometimes I physically help to build them. My life isn’t all silver spoons and Big Ben.”
After a long, studying look, he nodded. “Noted. I won’t take the tabloid stories about you seriously anymore.”
“I’m surprised you read them.”
“Only when you’re on the cover.”
So he’d been curious about her and what was going on in her life? She was curious about him. “So, tell me what you’ve been doing for the past ten years. In Scotland, you explained you’d never work for your dad because he was manipulative and hard, and he had to control everything.”
“Yes, I told you that. After Scotland, I joined a construction crew, but I found I missed the horses on the ranch. So I signed on as a trainer at a quarter horse spread. I liked the work, and I liked being separate from my family.”
“But then?” she prompted.
“But then Dad had a stroke. At first we thought his one side would be completely paralyzed. But it’s amazing what rehabilitation can do now. I helped him with it. He’s so stubborn and independent that we set up a home gym. My mom asked me to live there and watch over him. When he went back to work, she asked me to be his right-hand man there again.”
“He didn’t ask you?”
“Are you kidding? He always expected me to work there, so that’s where I’ve been the past five years. But it’s time for a change. It’s time for me to leave. My plans are in the works. That’s where the loan and me finding out about our marriage have come into play.”
Because Lucie had known Chase before, she felt she could read into his expression and his words. He’d felt trapped for five years, and he couldn’t wait to break free. Now, however, he was trapped in a marriage he’d assumed had been dissolved.
“You want out. You want to be free.”
His gaze locked to hers. “Don’t you?”
She did, didn’t she? In a month, she’d be in Guatemala working on a new orphanage. In a month, Chase would be putting his plans into action. At that time, they’d be going their separate ways. That was the plan, wasn’t it?
Gazing into his eyes, she wasn’t so sure.
