A Proper Wife

by Sandra Marton

  No, Frank didn’t know any of that. And he didn’t lie alone in his bed, night after night, his body on fire with the knowledge that the most beautiful woman in the world lay alone in hers, just up a simple flight of stairs....

  “...the old man?”

  Ryan cleared his throat. “Sorry, Frank. I missed that.”

  “I asked if you and Devon are still making the weekly pilgrimage to your grandfather’s house—or have things slackened off after five and a half months?”

  “Are you kidding? It’s a command performance. He and Brimley expect us at one o’clock sharp, every Sunday.”

  “And the old boy’s still hale, hearty, and happy?”

  “Oh, yeah, he’s doing fine.” Ryan smiled. “He’s crazy about Devon. And believe it or not, she’s gotten fond of him, now that she’s gotten to know him.”

  “So, what happens when your attempt at matrimony ends a week from now? It is gonna end, isn’t it?”

  Ryan downed half his drink. “Absolutely.”

  “So, what’s Grandpa gonna say to that?”

  “What can he say? I told him about the contract Devon and I signed, right from the start. I never lied to him, Frank. You know that.”

  “Yeah, but he’s got to be hoping.”

  “Sure. But he’s a pragmatist. He wanted me to try marriage and I did. If it doesn’t work...”

  “C’est la vie, as they say in Brooklyn.”

  Ryan laughed. “Exactly.”

  “Well, you can always point out that it’s as much his fault as anybody’s. He didn’t really find you a proper wife, did he?”

  “No,” Ryan said after a minute, “I suppose not.”

  “There she was, a modern-day version of Miss Goody Twoshoes, all sweetness and light and oh-so-eager to please, and what happens? She turns out to be a nasty-tempered, cold-hearted, conniving bitch who looks hot but actually has all the sexual warmth of a refriger—”

  Ryan reached for Frank so fast that after it was over, people around them couldn’t agree on what had happened first. All anyone was sure of was that one second two men were talking quietly and the next, the tall, handsome one shot to his feet, grabbed the heavier one by the collar and slammed him back against the bar so hard that it shook.

  “Watch your mouth,” he snarled.

  “Hey.” Frank’s mouth opened and shut like a fish’s. “Hey,” he squeaked, standing on the tips of his toes and clutching at Ryan’s hands, “what’s the matter with you?”

  “That’s my wife you’re talking about, Frank. My wife! And you’d damned well better not forget it.”

  “OK, man, OK. Just let go, will you?”

  The two men stared at each other, Frank’s face red, Ryan’s stark white except for the deep, dark rage blazing in his eyes.

  Slowly, Ryan’s iron-fisted grasp loosened. The darkness faded from his eyes and he let go of Frank’s shirt.

  “Hell,” he mumbled.

  Frank sank down onto his stool. The noise level around them picked up, then returned to normal.

  Ryan sat down, too. His hand trembled as he lifted his glass to his lips and drained it dry. He put the empty glass down and looked at Frank.

  “She’s my wife,” he said. “Devon is my wife. Do you understand?”

  He was gone before Frank could answer, shouldering his way through the crowd, out the door and into the night.

  Devon sat in the living room, an unopened magazine in her lap.

  Another Friday night, she thought. Another evening of trying not to imagine Ryan out on the town with his bachelor buddy.

  Devon frowned, put the magazine on the end table, and got to her feet. Not that it was any of her business. Whatever Ryan did had nothing to do with her. Except for a piece of paper with their names printed on it, he was as much a bachelor as his friend, Frank Ross.

  The house was so quiet. She still hadn’t gotten used to that. Whenever Ryan wasn’t home at night—which was almost always—she found herself pacing from room to room. Sometimes, when she heard his key in the lock, her heart would begin to race and it was all she could do to keep from flying down the stairs—and...

  But that was only natural. She’d never really lived alone. When she was growing up, she’d shared a succession of cramped apartments with Bettina. In boarding school, she’d shared a room with another girl and then, after she’d graduated, she’d gone halves on the rent of a furnished apartment that wasn’t as big as her entire bedroom was now.

  The phone rang, startling her. Perhaps it was Jill, the model who’d tried to stop her from confronting Ryan that long-ago day at Montano’s. They’d bumped into each other on Fifth Avenue a few weeks ago.

  “What’s new?” Jill had asked, and Devon had hesitated, then said that nothing was, really, and then they’d exchanged phone numbers. Jill was fun to talk to; she had a way of making Devon smile, and even, once in a very great while, laugh.

  But it wasn’t Jill phoning, it was Bettina.

  “Hello, darling,” she said. “I never can remember the time difference between New York and California. Are you and Ryan in the middle of anything?”

  Devon sighed. There was nothing subtle about her mother’s questioning; only the phrasing varied from week to week.

  “We’re not in the middle of a thing, Mother. Ryan isn’t even home.”

  “At this hour? Where is he?”

  “Out with a friend, I think. I’m not sure.”

  “What do you mean, you’re not sure? He’s your husband.”

  “Mother, please. Must we play this game? You know Ryan and I don’t have that kind of relationship. He lives his life, I live mine.”

  “That’s no way to make a marriage work!”

  Devon sank down on the sofa. It was hard to know what was more laughable, Bettina giving marital advice or Bettina pretending this was a real marriage.

  Either way, Devon wasn’t in the mood.

  “Did you call for a specific reason, Mother?”

  Bettina sniffed. “A mother doesn’t need a specific reason to call her daughter—but as long as you asked, you might tell that husband of yours that this house is going to need a new water heater.”

  Devon sighed. “Ryan’s not going to pay for the maintenance on that house forever, you know. Don’t you think it’s time you looked for a job?”

  “He would,” Bettina said crossly, “if you’d make that marriage work.”

  How could you make a marriage that wasn’t a marriage work? Devon thought, her throat constricting.

  “Ryan’s a wonderful catch, Devon. If you play your cards right, you can keep him.”

  Devon gave a sharp laugh. “You make him sound like a fish!”

  “Is he difficult to live with?”

  Devon thought of how days could pass without them exchanging more than a polite “good morning” and an equally polite “goodnight.”

  “No,” she said softly, “no, he’s not.”

  “What’s the problem, then? Don’t tell me he’s stingy!”

  Stingy? Devon pictured the endless charge cards in her wallet—cards she never used. She thought of the untouched sums deposited weekly into her checking account, of the trust account she’d never touched....

  “No, Mother. Ryan’s very generous.”

  “He doesn’t expect you to cook or clean, does he?”

  Devon smiled for the first time. Cooking and cleaning were Bettina’s idea of how the world would end.

  “He has a housekeeper, and a cleaning service,” she said.

  “What’s the problem, then?” Bettina’s voice sharpened. “Aren’t you doing what you can to please him in bed?”

  Devon’s cheeks went scarlet and she came quickly to her feet.

  “I have to go, Mother,” she lied. “I think I hear Ryan at the door now.”

  “That’s it, isn’t it? It’s a sexual problem. Devon, you cannot behave like a prude if you want to keep a virile male like Ryan happy. Lose your inhibitions. Rent some videos. Buy some sexy
lingerie. Men love black silk and garters and high-heeled shoes.”

  “Goodbye, Mother,” Devon said hurriedly. “I’ll talk to you soon.”

  Her face was flaming as she hung up the phone.

  Terrific. Just terrific. Marital advice from a world-class expert with some sex education thrown in free.

  Why hadn’t she ever told Bettina the truth, that she and Ryan didn’t sleep together?

  Because Bettina would have laughed in her face, that was why. She’d have called Devon every kind of fool for not sharing the bed of a man as handsome and sexy as Ryan Kincaid.

  But he was more than handsome, more than sexy. He had a wonderful sense of humor. Devon had stumbled across him joking with the housekeeper one morning, Mrs. Cruz’s lilting voice rising in laughter along with his as they teased each other in what was obviously a time-honored routine.

  “Your ’usband,” Mrs. Cruz had said with a girlish giggle that made her seem twenty years younger and forty pounds lighter, “he is some fine man, no?”

  It was an opinion Mrs. Cruz seemed to share with the cleaning lady and the proprietor of every shop in the neighborhood.

  According to all of them, Ryan was wonderful. His grandfather thought so, too; Devon could see the pride and love in James’s eyes whenever he looked at Ryan, and who could blame him? When he was with the old man, Ryan was loving and warm and caring.

  He was that way with everyone, except for her. And that was fine. It was just fine. Let the rest of the world be fooled; she knew the truth. She knew that Ryan was—that he was...

  “What shall I do?” Devon whispered in despair, burying her face in her hands.

  After a moment she wiped her eyes and got slowly to her feet. Another week, that was all she had to get through, and then this charade would be over. Seven days of living in Ryan’s house, and then she would never have to see him again...

  ...never have to pretend his homecoming didn’t thrill her, especially on the few nights he came home in time for them to dine together, or to mask her pain when he didn’t, when the hours ticked away and there was no key in the lock and no footsteps on the stairs.

  How many nights had she lain awake, listening for the sound of those footsteps? Wondering what she would do if they came up that last flight of steps, to her door?

  Devon jumped to her feet. What was the matter with her tonight? She felt as if she were going crazy. She had to do something or she would go crazy.

  A walk. A walk would burn off energy.

  But it was Friday. The sidewalks would be crowded with couples going out for the evening. Their hands and arms would be linked, they’d be smiling at each other with their hearts on their sleeves.

  All right, then. She’d go down to Ryan’s gym, turn on the motor in the lap pool. It was one of the few things in the house she felt no guilt in using. In fact, she’d come to love the force of the water and the silken power of it against her skin—but she’d made it a point to only use the pool during the day, when there was no danger of Ryan finding her in it.

  He’d been very polite and specific, telling her she was free to make full use of all the facilities in the place, but somehow the thought of having him see her in a bathing suit, however modest, was disturbing.

  That was why she’d never used the pool at night.

  But surely she’d be safe, using it now. It was barely seven o’clock; Ryan would surely not be home much before midnight. He never was, on Fridays. Devon always found herself lying in the dark, listening for his key in the lock, wondering where he’d been and who he’d been with.

  Before she could think any more stupid thoughts, Devon went to her room, changed into a simple white maillot, then made her way down to the lap pool.

  Ryan unlocked the front door and dropped his keys on the hall table.

  “Devon?”

  His voice echoed through the silence of the foyer.

  “Devon? Are you here?”

  Ryan scraped his hand through his hair as he went from room to empty room. All through the taxi ride home from The Watering Hole, he’d felt a tingling sense of anticipation at the thought of coming through that doorway and seeing Devon.

  Now, anticipation was rapidly giving way to disappointment as it struck him that he was alone in the house.

  Devon wasn’t here.

  Perhaps he should have called her, told her he’d changed his plans and would be home.

  But he never called her, never told her whether he’d be home or not. He was either there or he wasn’t; that was how it had been from the start. He had not just wanted that, he had demanded it.

  Besides, what would he have told her? That he was coming home because he’d made an ass of himself with Frank? That he’d gotten pissed off at the things Frank had said about her when they were the very same things he, himself, had said and thought?

  His footsteps echoed hollowly as he trotted up the marble steps to the second floor. He took a quick look into the library, into the music room and the game room.

  They were all empty, as he’d known they would be.

  Beyond, the stairs that led to Devon’s rooms disappeared into the shadows. Ryan moved toward them. His hand closed around the banister; he tilted back his head and looked up at her closed door.

  Was she up there? That was where she spent most of her time, when he was home; he could sometimes hear the sound of music drifting down from the CD player in her room. He knew her tastes by now: she favored Gershwin or Rachmaninoff. He smiled, thinking that until Devon had come along, he’d never thought anything written before the sixties was worth listening to and yet now...

  But there was no music coming from her rooms tonight. For all he knew, she might be out. It was early, the night was soft and the sidewalk cafés were open. She might have gone for a walk or to meet a friend—to meet whoever it was she sometimes laughed with on the telephone.

  Ryan blew out his breath. What was the matter with him tonight? So what if Frank had made a few cracks about Devon? So what if he’d come tearing home with some crazy idea that she’d smile when she saw him, smile and... and—

  And what? Ryan snorted in self-disgust. She was probably as happy as he was that only a week remained until they could agree that there was no point in even considering the renewal of their contract.

  What he’d told Frank was damned well the truth, he thought as he headed down the stairs again. It had been a long, rough week. What he needed right now was some heavy-duty relaxation to ease the kinks out of his muscles—and out of his head.

  Ryan tossed his jacket and tie aside. A half hour on the Nautilus, he told himself as he undid the buttons on his shirt. Hell, an hour on the black monster and then a workout in the lap pool would fix him up fine.

  He opened the door that led down to the gym and frowned. Had he left the lights on down here this morning? he wondered as he trotted down the steps. And what was that noise? He must have left the mechanism for the pool on, too.

  He pushed open the door to the gym and his breath caught in his throat.

  Wisps of hazy steam rose like fog from the heated water of the pool. And rising out of that mist, like a water nymph stepping out of some timeless legend, he saw Devon.

  Ryan’s gaze flew over her. Water beaded on her creamy skin, winking like diamonds in the light. Her hair, streaming down her back, was like a cascade of white-gold. Her body, encased in a simple white bathing suit, was barely hidden from his eyes. The water had turned the fabric translucent; there was no mistaking the firm thrust of her breasts or the crowning buds of her nipples and there was the faintest hint of a shadow at the juncture of her thighs.

  And yet it was her face that captured him and made his heart begin to race. What held him transfixed was not the shock that widened her eyes or the stunned parting of her lips; it was the look of sheer joy that swept across her beautiful features in that one, unguarded instant when she saw him standing in the doorway.

  “Ryan.” Devon’s voice was husky. “Wha...what are you
doing here?”

  He had to work his throat before he could speak. “I—I canceled my plans for tonight,” he said. “I wanted to... to see you.”

  Devon licked her lips nervously. “I—I wouldn’t have used the pool if...if I’d known that you were... Look, just let me towel off and change, and—”

  “No.”

  “Ryan, please—”

  The words died in her throat as he started slowly toward her. Her legs felt as if they had gone boneless. And she was trembling.

  He was so beautiful, so magnificently male. His shirt was open almost to the waist, revealing a tanned, hard-muscled chest covered with a swirl of black hair. His eyes—his eyes were darker than she had ever seen them, and glowing with fire.

  He stopped when he was inches away. “Devon,” he said huskily.

  “Don’t,” she whispered, “please, don’t...”

  And then she was in his arms, lifting her face blindly to his.

  His mouth was hot, demanding everything with such intensity that she knew she should have been frightened.

  But how could she fear what she had spent so many nights dreaming of? The feel of his lips against hers. The thrust of his tongue. The nip of his teeth.

  Devon whispered his name as she wound her arms tightly around Ryan’s neck. Her hands burrowed into the silken hair at the nape, swept under his shirt and across the powerful muscles in his shoulders and back.

  “Yes,” he said against her open mouth, “yes, sweetheart, yes.”

  He groaned and crushed her body to his. He could feel her heart race against his; he could feel the rounded sweetness of her breasts crushed against his chest. His body was alive to every inch of hers, to the long, exciting length of her legs and the upward tilt of her pelvis as he cupped her bottom in his hands and lifted her into the cradle of his hips.

  “So long,” he murmured as he rained hot kisses down her throat. “I’ve waited so long to do this.” His hands swept up into her hair, framing her face, raising it to his so he could look at her flushed cheeks and glowing eyes and know that this was real, that she wanted him with the same fierce need as his.