by Diana Palmer
“But the door…” she began.
“Isn’t closed. I know.” He slid his hand inside her bodice and under her soft bra, to find even softer flesh. His fingers gently caressed it, and she arched, gasping. “I’m going to carry you to bed now,” he breathed. “And I’m going to do all those things I did two nights ago. Right now.”
He got to his feet and picked her up, shifting her gently as he carried her down the long hall and into his bedroom. He placed her on the bedspread and went to close and lock the door. Then he stood at the foot of the bed, his black hair half in his eyes, his face devoid of expression, his body blatantly aroused.
She eased up onto her elbows, feeling feminine and hotly desired, her green eyes lost in the glitter of his gray ones. He nodded slowly. And then he moved toward her.
But just as he reached her, bent over her, warmed her mouth with his breath in a deliciously tense bit of provocation—the telephone rang noisily on the bedside table.
Donavan stared at it blankly, as if for a moment he didn’t even realize what was making the noise.
Impatiently he jerked up the receiver and spoke into it.
A familiar, sarcastic voice came over the line— Brad Danner, Jeff’s stepfather.
“I’m looking forward to tomorrow, Donavan,” he told the angry man on the other end of the line. “If you think that sham marriage is going to make any difference in a custody suit, you’re very wrong.”
“It isn’t a sham marriage,” Donavan said tersely, without looking at Fay, who was sitting shocked and disoriented beside him now, on the bed.
“I’ll let you prove that tomorrow. Take good care of my stepson, won’t you? I’m looking forward to having him home again.”
“Yes, it would be something of a luxury, wouldn’t it?” Donavan asked icily. “When you stuck him in military school at his first show of spirit.”
“One of you in a family is enough,” the other man replied, obviously straining to keep his temper. “All my married life, Debbie threw you up to me. Nothing I did was ever right, ever the same thing you would have done in my place. My God, you don’t know how I hated you!”
“Debbie always had a tendency to romanticize everything,” Donavan said curtly. “After Dad died, I was all she had. As for her opinion of you,” he added with mocking amusement, “I had nothing to do with it. You were a spineless complainer from day one. And don’t tell me the dowry I gave her wasn’t the real inducement to get you to the altar. You spent half of it the first week you were married to Debbie—on your mistress!”
The other receiver slammed down. Donavan slowly replaced his, chuckling with bitter amusement.
“Jeff’s would-be guardian,” he said, nodding toward the telephone. “He fancies himself a man. Imagine that?”
“He might have loved your sister,” she began.
“Really? If he did, why was he involved with another woman before, during and after the marriage? The woman he’s married to now, by the way. Debbie’s insurance money set them up real well. He made sure that Jeff wasn’t mentioned as a beneficiary.”
“He sounds very mercenary,” she said quietly.
“He thinks he can prove that our marriage is a fraud,” he said. His eyes narrowed on her face. “It’s imperative that we act like lovers. You understand that?”
She nodded. Her eyes fell to his broad chest, where his shirt was unbuttoned over a thick mat of curling black hair.
“I understand.” Her lips parted with helpless hunger, but she lowered her eyes so that he wouldn’t see how she felt. “That’s why you brought me in here, isn’t it, Donavan? So that it would show, in court tomorrow, that we’d been intimate.”
He hesitated, but only for an instant. “Yes,” he said curtly. “That’s right. I wanted to make you look loved, so that I wouldn’t risk losing Jeff.”
“I see.”
Her defeated expression made him wild. “He might run away if he gets sent back, don’t you see? He’s high-strung. I can’t let that happen. He’s all the family I have left in the world, Fay!”
She stood up with a long, gentle sigh. “Funny,” she said as she turned. “Once upon a time, I thought I was part of your family. It just goes to show how money can warp you. Being rich must have made me stupid.”
He rammed his hands into his pockets. He felt guilty, and he didn’t like it. She was rich. She had the world. She didn’t need a poor husband and a ready-made family, anyway. Even if he wanted her for keeps, which he didn’t. He had one scandal to live down. He couldn’t take another.
He only hoped he hadn’t made her pregnant in that feverish coupling. It would make her life impossible, because he knew he’d never be able to turn his back on his own child. She’d be trapped then, and so would he.
“It’s just as well that Brad interrupted us,” he said tersely, thinking aloud. “I’ve been unforgivably careless about taking precautions. It’s just as well if we don’t take any more risks. I’ll see you in the morning, Fay.”
It was a dismissal. He looked as unapproachable as a porcupine. Fay couldn’t understand why he’d bothered trying to seduce her in the first place. Now he seemed concerned about not making her pregnant. She left him there and went to bed, hurt and bitter and totally confused.
She dressed very carefully for court the next morning, in her off-white suit and leather high heels. She carried the one designer purse she had left, and wore a very becoming and very expensive spring hat. She looked what she was—a young woman with breeding who’d been raised to be a lady.
Donavan, in his pale gray suit, was openly appreciative of the way she looked. In fact, he could hardly keep his eyes off her.
“You look…lovely,” he said.
She managed a cool smile. “Why thank you, darling,” she said, playing her part to the hilt. Only her eyes gave the show away, because they were like two green pieces of ice. His hot-cold attitude had worn her out. She was giving up all hope of a happy marriage, but first she was going to help Jeff out of his predicament. It was a matter of honor. She’d given her word.
“Very nice,” he replied curtly. “You’ll convince anyone who doesn’t look at your face too closely.”
“I can handle that.” She pulled the hat’s matching veil down over her nose. “Now. One wife, properly accounted for, ready to go on stage.”
He stiffened and turned away, his anger evident and blatant.
Jeff came out of his bedroom in a suit. He looked from Fay to Donavan and grimaced. “Well, I guess I’m as ready as I’ll ever be, but I’m sure not looking forward to it.”
“Neither are we,” Donavan said. “All the more reason to get it over with as soon as possible. Try not to worry,” he added gently, placing an affectionate hand on the boy’s stooped shoulder. “And stand up straight. Don’t let him think he’s got you buffaloed.”
“Yes, Uncle Don.”
He herded Fay and Jeff out to the car and drove them to the county courthouse in a silence filled with worried looks and cigar smoke.
Brad Danner wasn’t at all what Fay had expected. He was short and redheaded and looked as if he had a massive ego.
“So you’re the brand-new Mrs. J. D. Langley,” Brad said mockingly, shaking off the firm hand of a suited man who was probably his attorney. “Well, it won’t work. You might as well go back to whichever bar he found you at and throw in your chips. You’ll never pull this off. I’ve got too much on you!”
“Have you indeed?” Fay asked, enjoying herself now. “Actually, Donavan did find me in a bar.” She leaned closer. “But I didn’t work there.”
“Oh, of course not,” he agreed amiably, and laughed as he turned back to the bleached blonde with the overlipsticked mouth who was obviously pregnant and almost certainly his wife.
Donavan motioned for Fay to sit down at the table with him. Jeff had already been taken away by a juvenile officer for the course of the hearing.
Formalities had to be observed. Once those were out of the way, Donavan�
�s attorney—an elderly man with keen eyes and alarming dignity—offered Brad’s attorney the opportunity to present his case first.
Donavan looked nervous, but Mr. Flores only smiled and winked.
Brad’s attorney got up and made a long speech about the things Brad had done for his stepson, most recently having enrolled him in a top-flight educational facility, which would lead him to an admirable career.
“We do concede that Mr. Danner has no blood relationship with the boy, as does Mr. Langley. However, despite his hasty marriage in an attempt to present a stable home environment, Mr. Langley overlooked one small detail. He neglected to keep his new wife close to home.”
Fay and Donavan exchanged puzzled glances. The opposing attorney opened his briefcase and dragged out several photographs of Fay with her uncle on the way to Florida, and at Tessie’s apartment, where they’d stayed until the funeral was over.
“This is the kind of monkey business the new Mrs. Langley gets up to when her husband’s back is turned,” the attorney said haughtily, glaring at Fay as if she were a fallen woman. “Hardly a moral example for a young boy!”
Donavan chuckled.
“You find these photographs amusing, Mr. Langley? You had been married for only a matter of days, I believe, when Mrs. Langley and her gentleman friend flew to Florida alone?”
“You aren’t from here, are you?” Donavan asked the attorney. “And apparently neither is your private detective.”
“He isn’t a private detective, he’s a friend of mine who used to be in intelligence work during the Korean War,” Brad said stiffly. “But you won’t lie your way out of this. That man in the photographs is…!”
“…my uncle,” Fay said. She glanced at Judge Ridley, who was an old friend of her family—and who was also trying not to break up.
“I’m afraid so,” Judge Ridley agreed, wiping the unjudicial smile off his face. “I’ve known Henry for years.”
“If he’s her uncle, why doesn’t he have the same surname she does?” the other attorney argued.
“Henry is Fay’s mother’s brother,” Judge Ridley explained. “Surely your detective checked?”
“He said Donavan had probably found her at a bar,” Brad began.
“Mrs. Langley and her uncle went to Florida to make the final arrangements for Mrs. Langley’s great-aunt,” Donavan’s attorney clarified. “As for your friend’s assertion that Mrs. Langley worked in a bar, let me assure you that nothing could be further from the truth. In point of fact, she was a debutante. And now, with the death of her great-aunt, she stands to inherit a large share of the estate.”
Brad looked sick.
“I am also reliably told,” Judge Ridley interrupted, “by the young boy whose custody is in question, that his uncle and Mrs. Langley have a warm, loving relationship, which gives him a much-needed feeling of security. Your accusation that the marriage is fraudulent hardly concurs with the home life the young man describes.”
“He’d do anything to get Jeff, even pretending to be happily married. Ask him if he loves her,” he challenged the judge. “Go ahead! He never lies. Make him tell her how he really feels about her!”
Fay stood up. “I know how my husband feels about me, Mr. Danner,” she said stiffly. “I also know how you feel about him. Jeff is only a pawn to you. But he’s a flesh-and-blood boy to Donavan. They’re very happy together. Jeff will get a good education and caring company, and it won’t be in a military school where he isn’t even allowed weekend visits home more than twice a year! If you wanted him so badly, why send him away in the first place?”
“A good question,” the judge agreed. He stared at Brad, who was slowly turning red. “Answer it, please.”
“My wife is pregnant,” Brad said shortly. “Jeff makes her nervous. Isn’t that right, honey?”
“I fail to see why you sought custody, Mr. Danner,” the judge persisted.
“Oh, tell him, Bradley,” the blonde muttered. She sanded a nail to perfection. “He only wants the insurance money. He’s afraid if he loses custody, he’ll have to give Jeff his share of it, and he’s already spent it.”
“You idiot!” Brad raged at his wife.
“What’s so terrible about the truth?” she asked with careless unconcern. “You were so scared of your brother-in-law finding out. Well, now he knows. Big deal. It’s only a thousand dollars, anyway. If you hadn’t bought that stupid boat, you could have afforded to pay it back.”
The courtroom erupted. Before the fur stopped flying, Fay got a glimpse of the real Brad Danner, and she was very sorry for his second wife. By the time Fay and Donavan left the courtroom, with custody of Jeff and the promise of repayment of the insurance money Jeff should have had, Fay’s head was whirling.
“Aunt Fay, I’m so relieved!” Jeff laughed, and hugged her impulsively. “I can stay, isn’t it radical?”
“Just radical,” she agreed happily.
“And you and Uncle Don fooled them all,” he added. “Everybody thought you were the most devoted couple anywhere!”
“That was the joke of the century, all right,” Fay said quietly, and met Donavan’s angry eyes over Jeff’s head. “Congratulations. You’ve got what you wanted.”
“Yes,” he said. “I’ve got everything I wanted.”
She smiled coolly, grateful for the veil that hid her sadness, and put an affectionate arm around Jeff as they walked toward the car.
Donavan walked a little behind them. He didn’t know how he felt exactly, but elated wouldn’t have covered it. He was glad to have Jeff with him, of course, but in the process he was certain to lose Fay.
That shouldn’t bother him. Fay was rich; he wasn’t. Their lifestyles would never mix, and everyone would think that he’d married her for her money. Hell, they probably thought it already. He laughed at his own folly. Even if he divorced her, they’d say he was after a big cash settlement in return for her freedom. They’d say like father, like son.
Suddenly the public censure that had worried him so much before fell into place. If he knew what his motives were, did it really matter what a few small-minded people thought? It was usually the hypocrites who gossiped, anyway—the people who lived public lives of high morality and private lives of glaring impurity. The few friends he had wouldn’t sit in judgment on him. So why was he agonizing over his plight?
He glanced at Fay hungrily. Hell, he wanted her. He’d grown used to having her around the house. He enjoyed watching her stumbling attempts to cook edible meals. He liked the smell of her perfume when he stood close to her, and the way she fussed over him and Jeff, as if it really mattered to her that something might happen to one of them. He liked her, most especially, sliding under his body in bed, giving him her warmth and exquisite sensuality, giving him ecstasy that even in memory could make him weak in the knees. He wanted to stay with her. He wanted a child with her. Was it too late? Had he done too much damage?
“Suppose we stop off at the pizza place and get a supreme to go?” Jeff suggested. “After all, we are celebrating.”
“Good idea. We’ll give Aunt Fay the night off,” Donavan agreed.
“He’s just tired of bouncing biscuits and black steak,” she told Jeff with a sigh. “I guess one well-cooked meal won’t kill us all.”
Jeff laughed, but Fay didn’t. Now that Donavan had Jeff, she wondered how much time she had left until Donavan wanted her out of his life for good.
Chapter 10
The pizza was delicious. Fay enjoyed it as much as the rest of the family seemed to, but her heart wasn’t in the celebration. She wanted to stand up and scream that life was unfair, that she’d been shortchanged all the way around. She’d always had money. But she’d never had love. Now it seemed that she didn’t have either. Great-Aunt Tessie’s legacy would be nice, but it would hardly allow her to give up her job. With some careful investing, it would grow, as long as she could live on what she made.
She worried about that for the rest of the day, trying to put on
a happy face for Jeff. But Donavan saw through it. He joined her on the porch swing while Jeff played with one of three new snow-white puppies in the barn.
“We won,” he reminded her as he smoked his cigar. Like her, he’d changed into casual clothes—jeans and a cotton shirt. He propped one booted foot on the swing and glanced down at her. “Aren’t you glad?”
“Of course,” she said absently. “I know how worried Jeff was.”
He stared out over the horizon. “There really wasn’t too much to worry about,” he mused. “I had a contact of mine feed his Korean War veteran buddy a few scandalous facts about you and Uncle Henry. It’s not my fault the man took it for gospel and didn’t double check. His loss, my gain.”
“Donavan!” she burst out. “That’s devious!”
“That’s how I am when people I love get threatened.” He looked down at her. “I’ll fight under the table, any way at all, to win when someone else’s life depends on it. I couldn’t let that strutting rooster get Jeff. It wasn’t a tug of war with me—it was Jeff’s whole life.”
“I know he appreciates what you’ve done for him.”
“I don’t imagine you do. I’m sorry to have made you look, even temporarily, like a fallen angel. But I had no choice.”
“I understood. Even the judge was having a hard time keeping a straight face.”
“Where do we go from here, Fay?” he asked solemnly.
She listened to the creak as the wooden swing pulled against the chains rhythmically.
“I’ll stay until your brother-in-law is safely back home and over his defeat,” she said. “We’ve already discussed where I’ll go.”
“No we haven’t,” he disagreed. “You said you were going to move back to the apartment house and I said you weren’t. My God, buy yourself a place, why don’t you?”
Her hands clasped together painfully. Didn’t he know he was tearing the heart out of her?
“I might, later on.”
She wasn’t giving an inch. He couldn’t tell anything by her voice or her expression.
