Read The Millionaire Claims His Wife Online

Authors: Sandra Marton

The Millionaire Claims His Wife (14 page)

BOOK: The Millionaire Claims His Wife
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Chase dropped his paring knife, clasped her shoulders and turned her to face him.
“You were the valedictorian of your graduating class, dammit! The only reason you didn't go to college was because we got married, right after you graduated high school.”
“I know. But—”
“We talked about it, remember? We tried to figure out if we could both go to college and still get married, and we decided we'd never be able to afford that.” His mouth twisted. “So I went. You didn't. You took those miserable jobs, flipping hamburgers—”
“First, I flipped fish filets,” Annie said with a shaky smile. “And then french fries. Hamburgers were a step up.”
“Dammit, Annie, you gave up what you could have had, for me. Don't you think I know it?”
“I gave up nothing. I wanted to do it.”
“Whatever we had—whatever I have, today—I owe to you.”
“You don't owe me anything, Chase. You never did. Don't you understand?” Annie took a deep breath. “I didn't want a college degree half as much as I wanted to marry you.”
“Yes.” Chase's voice roughened. His hands slid up her throat and he buried them in her hair as he tilted her face to his. “That was all I could think of, too. Marrying you. Making you mine. So I did the selfish thing.”
“You didn't!”
“I did, dammit!” His eyes searched her face, his gaze brushing her mouth before lifting again. “I let you give up your hopes and dreams so that I could have my dream.”
“It was important to you. Becoming an engineer, making a success of yourself....”
“My dream was to have you. Only you. And, once I did, to give you the things you'd missed out on when we first got married, because you'd had to make so many sacrifices.”
“They weren't sacrifices,” Annie said, as the tears rose in her eyes. “I loved you, Chase. I wanted to help you succeed.”
“And I only wanted to make you proud of me.”
They fell silent.
If only I'd known, Annie thought...
If only I'd understood, Chase thought...
Was it too late? he wondered. Could you turn back the years? Could that be something this beautiful, confident woman in his arms might even want to do? She'd turned into someone else, his Annie, a stranger with a life of her own.
Was it too late? Annie wondered. Was it possible to roll back time? They were two different people now, she and this handsome, wonderful man who had once been her husband. He had moved into a high-powered world that was eons removed from her quiet country life.
And then, there was Janet Pendleton. The woman Chase was engaged to marry. The woman he loved.
Tears stung Annie's eyes. What an idiot she was! How could she have forgotten? They'd moved on, the both of them, and Chase had found someone to replace her, in his heart and in his life.
She swallowed hard. Chase was looking at her so strangely. Oh, how tempting it was to let herself believe, just for an instant, for a heartbeat, that he still loved her. But she knew that he didn't. What she saw in his eyes was regret for the pain they'd caused each other, and compassion—but not love.
Not anymore.
“Annie.” His voice was soft, almost tender. “Annie,” he said, “I'm so sorry.”
“Don't be,” she said quickly. Compassion was one thing, but pity was another. Pity was the last thing she wanted from Chase. “There's no point. It's spilt milk, you know?” It wasn't easy, but she smiled. “And nobody should ever waste tears over spilt milk.”
“It's not that simple.”
“But it is.” Annie spoke quickly, rushing her words, hurrying to keep him from offering her another apology. What she wanted from him, needed with all her heart, was something she wouldn't think about, wouldn't admit to thinking about, even to herself. “It's very simple,” she said, with another little smile. “It looks as if us spending time together was a good idea, after all.”
“Yes. I agree.”
“If we hadn't, we'd never have gotten this chance to—to make peace with the past.”
“Can you forgive me, for hurting you?”
“Of course.” It was easier to smile, now that she knew it was the only choice left to her. “As long as you can forgive me, too, because I wasn't blameless. And then, we get on with our lives. With—with our new relationships.”
The tiny flame of hope in Chase's heart flickered and died.
“Milton Hoffman.” His voice was toneless.
“And your Janet Pendleton. Yes.”
Chase could see the radiance in Annie's smile. It lit her eyes. Funny, but a couple of minutes ago, he'd foolishly let himself think the light in her eyes was for him.
“We're very fortunate people,” she said softly. “Some never find love once but we—we found it twice.”
Chase stared at the stranger who had once been his wife. He thought of pulling her into his embrace and kissing her until that smile for Milton Hoffman was erased from her lips. He thought of kissing her until all she could think of was him.
But, in the end, he did what he knew was right.
“That's true,” he said, touching his hand to her hair, because he couldn't keep from doing it. He kept the touch light, though, so that it matched his smile. “We're very lucky, the both of us.”
He let go of her, turned away and reached blindly for a peeled onion. Annie watched, her heart breaking, as he sliced into it. She felt the sting of tears again and she scrubbed the back of her hand furiously over her eyes.
“Damned onions,” she said, with a choked laugh. “You're slicing them but I'm suffering. Isn't that silly?”
Chase, lost in his own thoughts, nodded. “Yeah.”
“So,” she said briskly, “what are we having for supper, anyway? Onion and potato pie?”
Somehow, he forced his attention back to the kitchen, and the mundane chores they were performing. He smiled, put down the knife, wiped his hands on the towel and opened the door of the cabinet just over the sink.
“Voilà,”
he said, whipping around to face Annie and holding out a small, round can as if he were a sommelier presenting her with a bottle of fine wine.
“Tuna? That's it? That's all you could find in this kitchen?”
“There's another half a dozen, right on the pantry shelf.”
“I don't believe it. All this, and Mr. Tanaka eats canned tuna?”
“I don't think sushi would have much of a shelf life.” Chase grinned. “Less than thrilling, huh?”
“You're sure there isn't anything else?”
“A couple of cans of evaporated milk. A bottle of corn oil. Some soup—”
“Cream of mushroom?” she asked hopefully.
“Yeah. I think so.”
Annie sighed. “Get me the soup and the evaporated milk, Cooper. Then step aside and let an expert get to work.”
“You mean, you can do something clever with this stuff?”
“I can try.”
Chase grinned as he plucked the other cans from the shelves, opened them and put them on the counter.
“I should have known. I'd almost forgotten how inventive you were with Spam, the first couple of years after we were married.”
“Inventive?” Annie said, as she drained the tuna into the sink.
“Sure. Seems to me I can remember Spam casserole, sautéed Spam, grilled Spam...”
“A can of Spam, a couple of onions and some potatoes.”
“Which recipe was that?”
“All of them,” Annie said, laughing. She dug around in the shelves beneath the stove, took out a skillet and put it on a burner. “I kept giving the same concoction different names, to keep us from going whacko.”
“Now she tells me. So, what's on the menu tonight?”
“How about Tuna Surprise?”
“What's the Surprise?”
“Managing to turn this mess into something edible,” Annie said, and laughed. “Here. Start dicing the potatoes. I'll heat up some oil and slice the rest of the onions.”
“Suppose you supervise while I do the work. It's my fault we're stuck out here, in the tail end of nowhere, so it's only fair I get to make dinner.”
“Let's face it, Cooper. We're trapped in a place most people would kill for, so stop apologizing and start dicing.”
Annie splashed some oil into the skillet, then leaned past Chase and placed it on the burner. Her breast brushed lightly across his arm, and he felt himself harden like stone. Desire, an overpowering need for her, for Annie, the mother of his child and the passion of his youth, surged through his blood, pumping hard and hot, and pooled low in his belly.
He jerked away. As he did, his elbow knocked against the knife and it clattered to the floor.
“Damn,” he said, as if it mattered, as if anything mattered but wanting to take his wife in his arms.
Milton Hoffman's face, the face of the man she loved, rose before him as if it were an apparition. Hoffman, who couldn't love Annie as much as he did because, dammit, he
did
love her. Not again, but still. He'd never stopped loving her, and it was time to admit it.
“Annie,” he said in a low voice.
Annie looked up. The temperature in the kitchen felt as if it had gone up ten degrees.
The message was there, in Chase's eyes. Her heart leaped in her chest. She told herself not to be a fool. What was happening here wasn't real. Reality was the papers that had legally severed their marriage. It was a woman named Janet, waiting for Chase back in New York.
On the other hand, hadn't some philosopher said reality was what you made of it?
“Annie?” Chase whispered. He reached toward her and she swayed forward, her eyes half-closed...
The smell of burning oil filled the kitchen.
Annie swung around, grabbed the skillet and dumped it into the sink.
“We'll have to start over,” she said, with a shaky laugh. She looked at Chase. “With the cooking, I mean.”
Chase nodded. Then they turned away from each other and made a show of being busy.
* * *
Annie fried more onions, parboiled the diced potatoes and put together a tuna casserole.
Chase made the coffee and opened a package of crackers and a box of cookies.
When everything was ready, they carried their meal into the living room, arranged it on the low, lacquered table and sat, cross-legged, on the black-and-white cushions. They ate in silence, as politely and impersonally as if they were strangers who'd been asked to share a table in a crowded coffee shop.
Afterward, they cleaned up together. Then Annie took a magazine from a stack she'd found in the kitchen.
Chase said he'd take another walk.
Annie said she'd read.
But she didn't. The black-and-white cushions didn't offer much in the way of comfort. Besides, her thoughts kept straying away from the magazine, to the hours looming ahead. There was an entire night to get through. She and Chase, sharing this cabin. And that bedroom.
How would she manage?
She jumped when Chase stepped into the living room.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn't meant to startle you.”
“That's okay.” She folded her hands over the closed magazine, her fingers knotted tightly together. “I was thinking,” she said carefully. “I mean, it occurred to me...”
“What?”
Annie took a breath.
“Well, there is one advantage to being here by ourselves.”
Chase looked at her. His eyes were burning like coals. “There's a definite advantage.”
There was no mistaking his meaning. Annie felt her heart swell, as if it were a balloon, until it seemed to fill her chest.
“What I mean,” she said, speaking with care, “is that there's no one here to know what our arrangements are. We wouldn't have to explain anything...” Her words stuttered to a halt. “Don't look at me that way,” she whispered.
Chase shut the door, his eyes locked on hers. “Do you want to make love?”
The directness of the question stole her breath away. She shook her head. “No! I didn't say—”
“I want you, Annie.”
His voice was rough and his face seemed to have taken on an angularity, but she knew what she was really seeing was desire. She knew, because this was how he'd looked, years ago, when their need for each other had been an unquenchable thirst. They'd be talking, or just sitting and reading or watching TV, and suddenly she'd feel a stillness in the air. And she'd look up, and Chase would be watching her, and what she saw in his eyes would make her breasts swell so that she'd feel the scrape of her bra against her nipples, feel the dampness bloom between her thighs...
BOOK: The Millionaire Claims His Wife
7.24Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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