HER SECRET HUSBAND

by Andrea Laurence

“We’ll discuss it later,” she interrupted. She wasn’t going to argue with him in front of Molly. She eyed her mother, who was casually sipping her coffee and sorting through her mail.

  As if she could feel the tension in the room, Molly set down her stack of bills and stood up. “I’m going to go take a shower,” she announced. She took the last sip of her coffee and went upstairs, leaving the two of them alone.

  Heath took Molly’s seat with a bowl of cereal in one hand and a mug of coffee in the other. “It’s later.”

  “You paying for my movers looks suspicious,” she complained. And it did. She made decent money. She didn’t need someone to handle it for her, especially Heath playing knight in shining armor.

  “I wasn’t planning on paying for it. My agency handles the Movers Express account. The CEO owes me a favor. I just have to make a call. Any why is it suspicious? If Wade or Xander offered the same thing, you’d take them up on it without question.”

  “Because I understand their motives,” Julianne said.

  Heath’s brows went up in surprise. “And what are my motives, Jules? Do you think I’ll demand my rights as a husband in exchange for it? Sex for a moving truck? That’s certainly a new one on me. Shoot. I should have made that part of the deal up front.” His light hazel eyes raked over her, a devious smile curling his lips. He leaned across the table and spoke in a low, seductive tone. “I saw the way you were looking at me just now. It isn’t too late to renegotiate, Jules.”

  The heat of his gaze instantly warmed the blood pumping through her veins. He very quickly made her aware of every inch of her body and how she responded to him. She wished he didn’t have that power over her, but the moment she’d looked at him as something more than a friend, it was like a switch had flipped and she hadn’t been able to reverse it. She also hadn’t been able to do anything about the attraction.

  “Yes, it is,” she said, dropping her gaze to her coffee mug in the hopes she could suppress her stirring libido. “Way, way too late.”

  “Well then, I guess I’m just trying to be nice.”

  He made her reluctance to accept his offer seem childish. “Of course,” she said, but a part of her still wondered. There were too many undercurrents running between their every interaction. Whenever Heath was nice to her, whenever he did something for her, she couldn’t help but wonder why. He had every reason to be angry with her. She’d treated him terribly, practically throwing his love back in his face.

  On their trip to Europe, they had lain on the grass at the base of the Eiffel Tower and watched the lights twinkling on the hour. There, he’d confessed to her that he had been in love with her since the fourth grade. Swept up in the moment, she told him that she loved him, too. Their relationship had begun in Paris. The marriage started and ended in Gibraltar just three days later. She’d pushed him away for his own good, but he’d never understand that. All he saw was that she turned her back on him and wouldn’t tell him why.

  For a while he was angry with her. He didn’t talk to her for their entire freshman year of college. Then he avoided her, doing internships instead of coming home for the summer. Their interactions were short, but polite. It took years, but eventually, he went back to the funny, easygoing Heath she’d always loved.

  The light banter and humor covered up their issues, however. They had both been apart for so long, most days it was easy to ignore what happened between them on the graduation trip. But now they were looking at months together. In close quarters.

  Julianne had the feeling that the pressure cooker they’d kept sealed all this time was about to blow.

  Three

  Ken’s surgery went perfectly the next day. He spent twenty-four hours in ICU, and then he was moved to a regular room. Once he was off the ventilator and able to talk, Ken demanded everyone go home and stop hovering over him like it was his deathbed.

  As instructed, Brody and his fiancée, Samantha, drove back to Boston. When Ken had his attack, Xander had been in Cornwall to move his ten-year-old son and new fiancée, Rose, to D.C. to live with him. He’d sent them along without him, so he gathered up the last of their things and met up with them back in D.C. Wade and Tori lived nearby and agreed to watch the farm while Heath and Julianne went home to make arrangements and make the transition to their new, temporary home.

  Heath had offered to drive with Julianne and help with her move, but of course, she’d declined. He didn’t know if she just didn’t trust him, or if she felt too guilty to accept things from him after she’d broken up with him. He liked to think it was guilt.

  The drive to Manhattan was quick, about two and a half hours. He called his business partner as he reached Chelsea and asked Nolan to meet him at his place to go over details while he packed. He found a metered spot on the street as he got off the phone. It was a great spot, considering how much he needed to load into the car. Some days he wasn’t so lucky and wished he’d gotten a place with parking.

  He hadn’t been looking for a condo in this area when he first started shopping, but he’d fallen in love with the modern feel and large rooftop terrace that was bigger than his first New York apartment. Everything else, including parking, fell to the wayside. It was close enough to the office, near a subway stop and one of his favorite restaurants was a block up the street. He couldn’t pass it up.

  Heath had cleaned all the perishables out of his refrigerator and had his largest suitcase packed when he heard the buzzer for the outer door of the building. He hit the release to let Nolan in and waited there for him to come out of the elevator. “Hey, man. Thanks for coming by.”

  Nolan smiled and straightened his tie as he walked down the hallway. It was the middle of the week, so he was dressed more for work than Heath, who was in his jeans and NYU alumni sweatshirt.

  “How’s your dad doing?” Nolan asked.

  Heath urged him inside and shut the door. “He’s stable. I think he’s going to pull through fine, but as I mentioned earlier, I’m going to be gone a few months while he recovers.”

  “Totally understandable. I think everything will go smoothly at the office. The only account I worry about with you gone is J’Adore.”

  Heath went to the refrigerator and pulled out two bottles of sparkling water. He opened them both and handed one over to Nolan. “The cosmetics account? Why do they worry you?”

  “Well—” Nolan shrugged “—it has more to do with the owner’s preference for Monsieur Langston.”

  “Oh,” Heath replied. Now he understood. The French cosmetics company was a great account. They’d helped J’Adore break into the high-end American cosmetics market in the last year. Thanks to his company’s marketing campaign, J’Adore was the trendiest new product line for the wealthy elite. The only issue was the owner, Madame Cecilia Badeau. She was in her late fifties, wealthy and eccentric, and she had Heath in her sights. For a while he was concerned they would lose the account if he didn’t make himself...available to her.

  “Thank goodness you’re married, man,” Nolan said, flopping down onto the sleek, white leather couch.

  There was that. It was the first time he was thankful to have that stupid piece of paper legally binding him to Julianne. In order not to offend Madame Badeau, Heath had to tell her he was married. It came as quite a shock to her, as well as Nolan, who was also in the room at the time. They were the only other people who knew he and Julianne were married. He explained that Julianne traveled for her work and was always out of town when he was asked about her. Madame Badeau had immediately backed off, but she still insisted the account be personally handled by Heath.

  “I think she’ll understand that I’ve taken a leave of absence.”

  Nolan looked at him, his dark brows pointedly drawn together with incredulity. “I sincerely hope so, but don’t be surprised if you get a call.”

  “After a month on the farm, I might be happy to answer.” Heath hadn’t spent more than a few days back at the Garden of Eden Christmas Tree Farm since he’d graduated from col
lege. Avoiding Julianne had meant avoiding his family, although he was beginning to think that was the wrong tactic. He was out of sight, out of mind with her. From now on, he was going to be up close and personal.

  “Are you going to be running that huge place all by yourself?” Nolan asked.

  “No,” Heath said, sliding onto the other end of the couch. “Julianne is going back for a while, too.”

  Nolan sputtered, obviously trying not to choke on his sip of water. “Julianne? Your wife, Julianne?”

  Heath sighed. “Technically, yes, but I assure you it means nothing. I mean, I told you we never even slept together, right?”

  “I still don’t know what you could’ve done to ruin a marriage within hours of your vows.”

  Heath had wondered that same thing a million times. One moment, he had achieved his life’s dream and married his glorious Julianne. The next, she was hysterically crying and screaming for him to stop touching her. The moment he let her go, she ran into the bathroom of their hotel room and didn’t come out for two hours.

  “I don’t know. She never would tell me what changed. She was happy. The perfect, beautiful blushing bride. She responded to me, physically. Things were going fine until they weren’t. All she would ever say was that she was sorry. She thought she could be with me, but she just couldn’t do it.”

  “Was she a virgin? My high-school girlfriend was a nervous wreck our first time.”

  “That’s what I thought. I never asked her directly, that felt weird, but that was my assumption. I kept thinking she’d warm up to the idea. She didn’t.” When he’d first told his partner about his crazy marriage, Heath hadn’t elaborated and Nolan had been kind enough not to press him for details. Now, facing months with Julianne, he was glad he had someone to talk to about it.

  Nolan scoffed. “What about when you got home?”

  “I was trying not to push her. She asked not to tell anyone about the marriage right away and I agreed. I thought she needed time, and we had a few weeks before we both went to school. One morning, I came in from the fields and her car was gone. She’d left early to go to Chicago and didn’t tell me or say goodbye.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I followed her up there. She wouldn’t even let me into her room. I’d never seen such a hard, cold expression on her face before that day. She told me getting married was a mistake. She was so embarrassed, she couldn’t bear to tell anyone about it. Then she told me to go home and forget it ever happened.”

  “Do you think there’s more to it than what she told you?”

  “Some days, yes, some days, no. I do think she was ashamed to tell people that she married me. Especially our parents. She’s always been too concerned with what people think. Jules had to have Molly and Ken’s approval for everything. Maybe she didn’t think she would get it for our marriage.”

  “Or?”

  That was the big question. Something just didn’t add up. If she had been so concerned about their parents finding out what happened, she either wouldn’t have married him at all or she would have panicked when they returned home and had to face telling them. But she had panicked on their wedding night without any warning that his eighteen-year-old self could pick up on. They had kissed and indulged in some fondling in the days before the wedding and again that night. It wasn’t until all the clothes came off that the mood shifted.

  Then there was fear in her eyes. Sudden terror. And he’d barely touched her, much less hurt her. He’d had eleven years to live that night over and over in his mind and still didn’t know what he did wrong.

  “I have no idea. I just know that whatever the issue is, she doesn’t want to talk about it.”

  “Why are you two still married, then? You’re not still in love with her, are you, Heath?”

  “I’m not,” Heath assured him. “That boyhood crush died a long time ago, but it’s more complicated than that.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “At first, I thought she would change her mind. We had broken up, but I was certain she would realize she was overreacting about the sex and after being apart for a while she would miss me and decide she really did love me and want to be with me.” He sighed, remembering how many nights he’d lain in bed naively fantasizing about her revelation. “But she didn’t. She just pretended it never happened and expected me to do the same. She wouldn’t talk about it.”

  “Then divorce her,” Nolan suggested. “Be done with it.”

  Heath shook his head. “I know that I should, but there’s no way I’m letting her off the hook that easily. I definitely think it’s time to wrap the whole thing up between us, but she left me. I’m going to make her finish the job.”

  Nolan didn’t look convinced. “That hasn’t worked so well for you so far.”

  “I just think she needs a little incentive. Something to push her to make a move.”

  “What have you got in mind?” Nolan asked, his eyes lighting up with his wicked imagination. He was the perfect business partner for Heath. They were both devious to a fault, but Heath had the creativity and Nolan had the business smarts.

  He could still picture her flushed cheeks and stuttering speech when she was faced with his half-naked body. That really was the key. “I’m going to go back to the house and help Jules set up her new studio there. I’ll do everything I need to around the farm. But I’m not going to pretend like nothing ever happened between us. I’m not going to sit on my hands and ignore that we’re still attracted to one another.”

  “You’re still into her? After everything that has happened? That’s kinda twisted, man.”

  Heath shrugged. “I can’t help it. She’s even more beautiful than she was back then. I’ve always been attracted to her, and if she was honest with herself, she’d have to admit she’s still got a thing for me, too. I’m going to try to use it to my advantage. Sex was always our problem, so I intend to push the issue and make her so uncomfortable, she will be all too happy to file for divorce and put this behind her. By the time I come back to New York, I expect to be a free man.”

  Nolan nodded slowly and put his bottle of water onto the coffee table. “And that’s what you want, right?”

  Heath wasn’t sure what his business partner meant by that. Of course he wanted this to be over. And it would be. There was no way that Julianne would take him up on his sexual advances. She’d run, just like she always did, and he could finally move on. Just because he was still attracted to Julianne didn’t mean that anything would come of it.

  “Absolutely.” Heath smiled wide, thinking of all the ways he could torture his bride over the next few weeks. When it was all said and done, he would get his divorce and they would finally be able to move on.

  But he sure as hell wasn’t going to make it easy on her.

  * * *

  No one was around when Julianne arrived in her small moving truck. She wouldn’t admit it, but Heath had been right. She needed help moving. There was more than she could fit in the car, so she decided to skip the storage rental and just bring it all with her. By the time she had that realization, she was already in Sag Harbor staring down the piles of stuff she didn’t remember accumulating, so she ended up renting a truck one-way and towing her Camaro behind it the whole way.

  She pulled the truck up behind the bunkhouse, where it would be out of the way until she could unload everything. Her clothes and personal things could go into her bedroom, but all the supplies for her studio would have to wait. She’d scoped out the storage room before she left and knew it would take time to clean it out. She’d considered doing it then, but Heath had insisted she wait until he was back from New York and could help her.

  She opened the door to the storage room to give it a second look. The room was dim, with only the light coming in from one window, so she felt around until she found a light switch. A couple of fluorescent bulbs kicked on, highlighting the dusty shelves and cardboard boxes that filled the space. Molly was right—with a little elbow grease it woul
d be the perfect place for her to work.

  The hardwood floors continued into the storage room. There were several sturdy shelving units and open spaces for her to put her equipment. The brand-new, top-of-the-line kiln she ordered would fit nicely into the corner. She couldn’t wait to get settled in.

  Julianne grabbed her large rolling suitcase and threw a duffel bag over her shoulder. She hauled them slowly up the stairs and paused at the landing between the two bedrooms. She wasn’t sure which one to use. She’d never slept in the bunkhouse before. Whenever she came home, she used her old room, but that was going to be unavailable for a few weeks at least until Dad was able to climb the stairs again. She reached for the doorknob on the left, pushing the door open with a loud creak.

  It was a nice, big space. When she was younger the rooms had been equipped with bunk beds that would allow the Edens to take in up to eight foster children at a time. Wade, Brody, Xander and Heath had stayed at the Garden of Eden until they were grown, but there were a dozen other boys who came and went for short periods of time while their home situations straightened out.

  She was relieved to see the old bunks had been replaced with two queen-sized beds. They had matching comforters and a nightstand between them. A large dresser flanked the opposite wall. She took a step in and noticed the closet door was ajar and a suitcase was lying open inside it. And a light was coming from under the bathroom door. Heath was back. She hadn’t noticed his car.

  Before she could turn around, the bathroom door opened and Heath stepped out. He was fresh from the shower. His hair was damp and combed back, his face pink and smooth from a hot shave. The broad, muscular chest she caught a glimpse of a few days before was just as impressive now, with its etched muscles and dark hair, only this time his skin was slick. He had a towel wrapped around his waist, thank goodness, but that was the only thing between her and a fully naked Heath.

  Once upon a time, the sight of her naked husband had launched her into a complete panic attack. The cloud of confused emotions and fear had doused any arousal she might have felt. Eleven years and a lot of therapy later, only the dull ache of need was left when she looked at him.