by Mary Malcolm
Table of Contents
Title Page
copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Epilogue
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Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
The Texas Millionaire’s Runaway Wife
by
Mary Malcolm
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
The Texas Millionaire’s Runaway Wife
COPYRIGHT © 2013 by Mary Duncanson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: [email protected]
Cover Art by Angela Anderson
The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
PO Box 708
Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708
Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com
Publishing History
First Champagne Rose Edition, 2013
Digital ISBN 978-1-61217-916-2
Published in the United States of America
Dedication
To my wonderful friends and family,
who have always told me I should pursue my dreams
no matter how big or small.
Thank you!
Chapter One
Stephen had merely glanced up at his security monitor from the document he was signing, but what he saw made his blood run cold.
It couldn’t be her. It had only been a month, yet it seemed impossible that the one woman Stephen Sands had vowed to spend the rest of his life hating had waltzed into his office and sat primly on the edge of his Italian leather sofa as if she had every right to be there.
His phone buzzed.
“Mr. Sands, your two o’clock has arrived.”
He hit the button. “Ms. Simmons, please come into my office.” He watched the monitor as his secretary excused herself and came to his door.
“Yes?”
He gestured. “Please come in, and shut the door behind you.”
She entered wearing the ill-tempered look of a drill sergeant who missed breakfast, seeming ready to defend herself if need be.
“What is that woman doing here?”
The crease on her brow deepened and she stepped a foot farther in. Her curly brown hair, peppered with enough un-dyed white to show defiance toward her age, bobbed as she shook her head. “She’s your two o’clock.”
Pursing lips, he straightened his tie and crossed arms over his chest. “That woman. You said she has an appointment?”
How could he have missed that? Every morning he got here more than an hour early to drink his cup of coffee and go over the day’s schedule. He hadn’t seen “Heartless Bitch” written anywhere, but then again, perhaps he’d overlooked it.
She crossed to his desk and picked up the planner. Her finger trailed down until it landed on the entry. “Two o’clock, Mrs. Presley. It’s right here.” She held out the book, as if that would answer things.
It did not. Though the name made sense now that he thought about it. Vegas. He shut the planner and placed it back on his desk. “I saw the entry.”
Cheeks flushed, Gayle crossed her own arms and matched his stance. After twenty-five years with his father and ten with him, she refused to argue with a Sands man. So she waited.
“You remember her, right?”
Gayle Simmons had an almost photographic memory when it came to people and faces. “I do. That’s the woman who made the wedding cake for your dad’s wedding to Lacy. No—Barbara.”
Apparently her memory didn’t stretch to events. Not that he could fault her, his father had been married four times. “Diane. It’s been a year since then. You didn’t recognize her voice when you set the appointment?”
Anger tinged the edges of his words. Stephen couldn’t imagine a scenario where in his lifetime he might forget her voice, the way she said his name, the softness of her laugh. The bitterness of her final words as she broke his heart. It wasn’t fair for him to expect Gayle to remember what he couldn’t forget, but there it was.
Her arms uncrossed and she heaved a sigh, her bosom straining the buttons of her blazer. “Why would I recognize her voice, Stephen? What is this all about? She came through that door demanding to see you. I told her she’d have to wait, just like everyone else.”
“It-it’s nothing. Complicated. No, it is something, just…” He cursed under his breath. “Ah hell. I need to take a few minutes.” He sat behind his three-hundred-year-old antique oak desk, a gift to his father from the king of a country that didn’t even exist anymore, and leaned back in the chair. Closing his eyes, he pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath.
And the day had started out so good.
The sarcastic thought was a laugh.
On the way in, he missed the new speed zone change on Callahan and now he’d have to pay a fine for going fifteen over. More frustrating was that the officer hadn’t wanted to give it to him. Had argued with him once he saw who he was. Stephen had always been a big supporter and donor to the Fort Worth Police Department, but that shouldn’t excuse him from wrongdoing. That was always the way, though, and probably the thing Stephen hated most about his notoriety. Anyone else and the officer would have gladly handed over the fine, yet he tried to back out once he saw it was Stephen.
What kind of world was it if millionaires got out of tickets because they had money while someone poor and unrecognizable would have to pay two days’ salary for the same offense?
He sat up and looked at Gayle. “Did she give any reason why she’s here?”
Gayle now sat across from him with one pant-clad leg crossed over the other. She sat up, straight-backed, one hand placed squarely on her knee, the other tapping somewhat restlessly on the arm of the chair. “Honestly, Stephen, I have no idea. She called to make an appointment, and when I asked her what it was concerning, she said it was regarding Magnolia Bransford Academy. I looked at your calendar and saw you’d be free, so I penciled her in.”
Stephen served on the board for Magnolia Bransford. They were the highest rated school for autistic children in the nation. He remembered the exact conversation and what he’d promised to do for her. “God, of all the days for her to come.”
“Look, I’ve already put in a call about that ticket, so you won’t have to worry about that.”
“No, it’s not that.”
He wished. No, the truth of the matter was that seeing Cassie Eden sitting in his reception area with her tight green skirt and low-cut white blouse turned him on more than any other woman he’d ever met. He should be furious as hell, yet in that moment he only felt grateful for the desk separating him from Gayle and for the fact he was seated and well hidden. “Just not a good day for her, is all,” he replied, desperately trying to quell the desire he felt at just seeing her again.
“I could reschedule,” Gay
le offered.
“No, that would only delay the inevitable.”
Gayle stood and straightened the crease on her pants. As her hand reached for the door she turned. “You could cancel, you know. I’m certain whatever her reason for being here is, she can reschedule.”
It couldn’t. He didn’t owe her anything, yet he couldn’t forget the promise he’d made her. So he wouldn’t reschedule, he wouldn’t cancel. “Please tell my wife I’ll see her in a few minutes.”
Gayle’s hand stilled at the door as he spoke; she looked visibly shocked by his words. Yet, always the professional, she pushed through and shut it quietly behind her.
****
Cassie felt the oxygen slowly being sucked from the room and the walls closing in around her. It had only been a month since she’d last seen Stephen, yet a lifetime had passed. Every aching day, every sleepless night, she aged at least ten years.
And he was entirely to blame.
As she waited outside his office door, she could only imagine the scenario he’d cooked up inside. He was always a charmer, always good at getting what he wanted. And he’d wanted her. Only, he’d also wanted to keep her secret, so really, how could he blame her for not wanting to be with him? Still she knew he did, and that he held her future in his hands. She despised him for what he’d done to her. If she didn’t need him so desperately now, she’d have stayed away for good.
If only every other option hadn’t already been exhausted.
She hated this, abhorred the idea of asking him for anything. Especially knowing how he felt about it. There had been so many people asking things of him his entire life. His father asking him to constantly accept new wives, his brothers asking him to be the one they could look up to. Stephen had dated women who needed him for everything from help paying rent to car payments women who only wanted him for what he had to offer, mostly money it seemed...she’d told him before she was not that kind of woman. She would never be. If it weren’t for Annie, she wouldn’t be here now. The thought of her niece, of how important this was made Cassie steel herself for what was to come. Things should have been different, would have been had Stephen given her any hope of a true future together. But he hadn’t, and the way he acted broke her heart in ways she may never recover.
Which seemed crazy. She’d never loved so deeply and unabashedly as she had loved Stephen.
Nor been so brokenhearted when the truth came to light.
A year ago the mere sight of Stephen made her heart leap and stole her breath. She hadn’t known when she met him who he really was, thought he was a valet or someone else working the Sands wedding. The guy who snuck in through her kitchen had shaggy hair and a face peppered with a little too much overgrowth, scarcely resembled the millionaire son of a modern mogul, Forbes Man of the Year two years running. Not that she’d known or even paid attention to any of that before him.
She was a baker. She cared more about cutting all-purpose with a little potato starch to make her cakes fluffier than what the grossly wealthy were doing.
He’d lied to her then—about who he was and about his love for her—and continued his lies until the day she left him. Cassie unbuttoned one more button on her blouse. The room felt stifling, hot, stale.
That she could never truly forgive his lies gave her courage to face him now. If she still loved him, if she still felt any of the hope she’d worked so hard to dash, she’d never have been able to make that call much less walk through the door.
Cassie looked at her watch. Twenty minutes. She knew he could stretch it out for another couple hours if he wanted. Hell, he could decide not to see her at all. He’d have to leave the building at some point, though. And if she had to wait for him at the entrance all night, she’d wait.
His office door opened and a flutter of panic rose in her belly, twisting around like a vice grip on her spine. She felt equal parts concrete and jelly. Tight and absolutely fluid in the same breath. The secretary stepped through and shut the door firmly behind her.
“Is he...”
“Not yet, he’ll see you in a few minutes.”
Disappointment landed somewhere around her middle, where the panic had been. It seemed ironic and awful that a man she’d been so quick to run away from should hold the key to everything now. She sat back on the couch and straightened her skirt wondering if she should have worn slacks instead.
She’d worn the green A-line. He’d made it very clear that he admired her in this style and she wanted to take any advantage she could. The low cut blouse was another advantage she planned to take.
“Ms. Simmons?”
“You may call me Gayle.”
“I’m sorry I spoke to you the way I did when I first came in. I had no right to be so demanding.”
Gayle clicked a key on her keyboard. “No, you did not.”
The young woman on the other phone, seeming to sense something was going on, hung up and only pretended to work, obviously eavesdropping.
“I don’t suppose you know who I am?”
“I do.”
“From the wedding?”
Gayle raised an eyebrow.
“More then. So Stephen told you?”
“Not that it’s any of your business.”
So he hadn’t. Not exactly, or at least that’s what Cassie could infer from the secretary’s tone of voice.
It shouldn’t still hurt this much, but knowing she was still his dirty little secret socked a hole in the pit of her stomach. She bit her lip in frustration and anger at the situation. This wasn’t how their story was supposed to end. Goddamn him!
Suddenly unable to hold back anymore, she stood. “Look, I shouldn’t have to wait out here for Stephen to decide it’s a suitable time for my presence. Whether he’s ready or not, I’m going in.”
Gayle leaned forward. “Sit down,” she said in a voice that broached no argument.
Cassie sat.
“You may go in when Mr. Sands says you may go in. No, more so, you may go in when I say. Until then, you will sit there and you will wait.” She went back to typing, then as if to complete an unspoken thought said, “I don’t know why you’re here, but if you say or do a single thing that so much as upsets Mr. Sands even slightly, I’ll have security up here and have you out the building so fast even your shadow will feel roughed up.”
“Why I’m here and how he reacts is not really your concern, is it Gayle?” There. That felt good.
She huffed and resumed stabbing the keyboard with her fingers. The other girl, seeming to sense the drama over, at least for now, went back to working in earnest.
Glancing at her watch again, Cassie wondered how long it would take to get back to the Northside after this. There was plenty of time, she didn’t need to be there until four o’clock, but with every ticking minute came another moment of panic. Another thought came—of what Stephen might say when she asked for his help. Of how he might laugh, or worse, what if he refused her entirely? Stephen was literally her last hope and if he said no, that meant she would have no choice but to sell the bakery. She’d spent every bit of her inheritance buying it, it was the only thing of value she had. Her entire future, really. But Annie meant more to her than anything and if she had to sacrifice her future for her niece, so be it.
Sacrifice. Now that’s a word Stephen Sands had never known.
How she hadn’t recognized him that first day boggled her mind. Then again, she hadn’t expected the son of a millionaire tycoon to be sneaking into a wedding through the kitchen, either. Plus, she was a baker. She went to work with the sun still down and spent all her free time concocting new recipes in the kitchen. She rarely noticed much beyond her nose, much less took the time to deconstruct someone’s lies.
It was only after they’d married that he told her the truth—that he had no plans of letting anyone know who she was. The shame made her cringe. She wasn’t the most beautiful girl in the world, but to be hidden, to be treated with such dismissal made her feel truly ugly. Not something she’
d ever felt before.
So she’d left.
And then he was everywhere. His picture graced billboards all over the city, “Sands Enterprises, Building a Better Tomorrow, Today.” It didn’t seem fair that he got to be Fort Worth’s golden boy and Cassie a smudge from his past.
Golden boy, more like Greek God. Broad shoulders, a strong Nordic jaw, aquiline nose, full lips, liquid blue eyes. And his hair. He had a devastatingly gorgeous full head of black hair. She’d spent months imagining their children with that hair as they’d lounged around her place, or during some of the long road trips they’d taken on the weekends. Little curly headed girls with his black hair and her green eyes. Or perhaps boys with their father’s blue.
The memory hurt.
She gave one of her auburn curls a tug and brushed a fleck of lint from her blouse. Briefly glancing at the security camera she wondered if he might be watching her right now. Such an unnerving thought. Playing with the tennis bracelet he’d given her for their six-month anniversary, she started when the phone on Gayle’s desk buzzed.
“He’s ready to see you now, Mrs. Sands.”
****
The door looked like it should weigh a ton but it pushed open effortlessly under her hands. Which left no other barriers between Cassie and Stephen. Eyes cast down, she didn’t want to be the first to speak. Not that she had to worry.
“Hello, Cassandra.”
She shut the door and let her eyes travel upward. His brown leather wingtips gave way to tailored navy slacks. Arms crossed over a pinstripe white on satin shirt and a red and white foulard tie. Then his face. He looked sharp, alert. Was it too much to ask that he might at least be a little sleepy or perhaps have some three o’clock shadow or something? And what about those eyes? Those liquid blues framed with kohl black lashes. They used to make her melt as they caressed up and down her body. Now they held so much contempt that for a moment Cassie wanted to bolt.
